ROK Entertainment Group, the UK-based mobile technologies and applications development company, has announced the launch of ROK Media Store, following a 4-month trial and testing period.
ROK Media Store is a web-based application, available for free, which enables users to upload their music collection to their PC and sideload it to the memory card on their mobile phone. In addition, further music and video content is available for purchase online and is delivered to the buyer using ROKs proprietary content-compression and copy-protection technologies.
More than 100 million iPods have been sold worldwide in the past five years, which clearly shows the enormous demand for music on the move” says ROK CEO Laurence Alexander. Mobile entertainment is a proven market which stretches back more than 25 years from the days of the Sony Walkman, but when you look at the far bigger scale of the mobile phone market, with 3 billion handsets in use, being upgraded at the rate of 1 billion new handsets every year, ROK Media Store is designed to allow millions more people the opportunity, right now, to upload, manage and listen to music on their mobiles, in the same way those with an iPod have been able to do.”
ROK is touting Media Store as an iPod killer (good luck – Ed), not because it competes with the iPod as another dedicated media player like Microsofts Zune, but because it offers a real and viable alternative, designed for a device the consumer already owns – their mobile phone.
Why take two bottles into the shower? adds ROK Marketing Director Bruce Renny. If your phone can behave like an iPod, why buy an iPod?
ROK intends to monetise Media Store through a combination of online advertising and by offering people the chance to by additional content via the website for side-loading to their mobile phones, in a manner similar to iTunes. ROK will also be adding video functionality to the service later this year.
Its about time someone offered an alternative to iTunes in the mobile music space says  Alexander. In addition to simply uploading their own music to their mobile phones, which is entirely free to use, we will be offering an ever-increasing portfolio of music and video content for people to buy online to augment their collections in the same way as iTunes sells music. And well be adding more video content, going-forward, to include everything from full-length movies to music videos.”
According to M:Metrics, 12% of people in the UK already download music to their mobile phones.
ROK Entertainment Group is currently deploying its mobile TV service streamed over 2.5G via GPRS, 3G and WiFi networks to more than 30 operators worldwide as well as direct to consumers via Nokia Eseries devices. In May this year, ROK announced it had agreed to be acquired by US publicly-listed company CyberFund in a Share Exchange Agreement.