Sonos: 'We're rooting for Spotify'

By Nate Lanxon on 09 March 2009, 12:48pm

Spotify has a new would-be evangelist: Sonos. "We're rooting for them," said Mieko Kusano, director of product management at Sonos, in a rare meeting with CNET UK. "They are one of the companies we're interested in working with."

It'd be an awesome move. Sonos already supports unlimited streaming from Napster, but for a cost. Imagine a Sonos music system with unlimited music, but for free. That's something Apple can't currently threaten with its iTunes/AirPort Express/iPhone Remote app ecosystem, and nor can the Squeezebox.

Kusano stressed that the focus for Sonos is streaming music in the cloud, which only further reinforces the hope that Spotify could come to Sonos in the near future. And despite the economy, plus the fact that the most popular Sonos purchase is a £700 setup (according to Amazon), December 2008 was the biggest month on the company's record for registrations of new systems.

That's not a bad position to be in for striking deals with blossoming start-ups.

There are some areas Sonos won't be attacking soon, however. One is internal storage. Sonos has no interest in building a ZonePlayer with a hard disk inside. Additionally, it has no plans to move into Asia until 2010 at the very earliest.

So what's your take? Would a Sonos/Spotify deal convince you to invest in the Sonos music system? Let us know in the comments below.