Samsung takes entertainment to the cloud with mSpot buy
The global electronics company buys the mobile cloud-media provider in a bid to boost the music, video, and radio-entertainment offerings on its smartphones and tablets.
Samsung announced today that it acquired mobile cloud content service provider mSpot. This means that users will soon be able to access their music and video stored in the cloud via a pre-installed mSpot app on newly announced Samsung mobile devices.
"MSpot shares our vision to bring a best-in class cloud and streaming entertainment experience to consumers," senior vice president of Samsung Electronics' Media Solution Center TJ Kang said in a statement, "and they've backed it up with great technical solutions from a great engineering team." Samsung didn't announce terms of the acquisition.
Palo Alto-based mSpot launched in 2004 and delivers music and video to mobile devices via the cloud -- similar to how Amazon's Cloud Player and Google Music work. Using mSpot's app, people can access their movies and music stored in the cloud and then play them on a device. The service also offers streaming radio, much like Pandora and Spotify.
With this acquisition, Samsung aims to amplify its smartphones, tablets, and smart TV entertainment offerings and keep up with competition from Apple, Google, and Amazon.
"Samsung is unparalleled in terms of global reach and cutting edge devices," mSpot Chief Executive Officer Daren Tsui said in a statement. "With our combined resources, we are looking forward to redefining media consumption across the mobile universe with cloud services."