HP is in conversations with the major record labels about launching its own digital music locker service, which would offer music, movies and TV shows, according to Billboard magazine. Speculation that HP had plans for a cloud service has been heating up since Precentral.net reported in April that a confidential PowerPoint presentation about the forthcoming TouchPad mentioned a previously undiscussed HP Music Store and HP Movie Store.
HP's marketing department may have gotten way ahead of the negotiators this time; sources said the discussions are still in the very early stages.
Despite having to follow heavyweights Apple, Amazon, and Google into the cloud, HP has been dabbling in the music business for the better part of the past decade.
• In 2001, HP released a digital-music/computing appliance called the HP Digital Entertainment Center de100c that allowed consumers to download music from the Internet and play it on a home stereo.
• In 2004, HP partnered with Starbucks to launch a new music-centric coffee store in which customers would be able to create their own music compilations from a digital library and burn them to CDs. Read More
