Sansa Nation

SanDisk has acquired the company MusicGremlin, which is a privately-held technology company that develops advanced digital content distribution technologies.

MusicGremlin focuses mainly on social music distribution. They were the first to develop software that allowed people to share and listen to music over air.

MusicGremlin’s digital distribution platform and capabilities will provide SanDisk with adaptive and innovative technology that will play a key role in the development of future Sansa products for consumers

(stated by Daniel Schreiber, general manager and senior vice president for SanDisk’s Sansa audio/video business unit.)

SanDisk and MusicGremlin share a core passion for granting consumers easy access to digital content.” We’re very pleased that MusicGremlin technologies will soon contribute to a new generation of Sansa products and services. We look forward to joining SanDisk in realizing our vision for the future of distributed media.

SanDisk hopes to integrate this concept and technology in the future devices. This reminds me in part of Zune’s Social system. Hopefully though, SanDisk will choose to make the system more open than the Zune’s as is their history against having restrictions on content.

SanDisk will fold MusicGremlin into its Sansa business unit. MusicGremlins new Wi-Fi enabled feature will allow users to share songs wirelessly between their devices and sync music from the computer wirelessly, a feature also available on the Microsoft Zune. MusicGremlin also developed a licensed music service, although it’s unclear whether or not any licenses would need to be renegotiated as a condition of the sale.

“We do intend to incorporate MusicGremlin’s technology into future products, … but cannot discuss future products that have yet to be announced,” a SanDisk spokesman said.

“MusicGremlin’s digital distribution platform and capabilities will provide SanDisk with adaptive and innovative technology that will play a key role in the development of future Sansa products for consumers,” Daniel Schreiber, general manager and senior vice president for SanDisk’s Sansa audio/video business unit, said in a statement.

Financial details were not released. Robert Khedouri, co-chief executive and co-founder of MusicGremlin, will join the Sansa team as vice president of services.

“SanDisk and MusicGremlin share a core passion for granting consumers easy access to digital content,” said Khedouri.

[Source: PC MAG]