Sonos says no to Spotify support for now

EXCLUSIVE: Streaming music service making it hard to port elsewhere

28 July 2009 3:00 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Sonos has confirmed to Pocket-lint that it will be some time before music streaming service Spotify comes to its multi-room audio system. The news, which is likely to come as a disappointment to Sonos fans keen to bring some Spotify love to their homes, isn't a reluctance to offer the streaming service, but a technical issue, says the company.

"The way they [Spotify] offer the content isn't easy for us to be able to push out to the thousands of controllers and systems we have in the market", Thomas Cullen, co-founder of the company told Pocket-lint in New York.

Spotify, rather than build a system that allows companies like Sonos to grab the music streams, has opted instead for a software application that users have to install on their PC or Mac. The problem, cites Cullen, is that for Sonos to be able to access Spotify's database it would have to build and then install an application on every device it sells - something it is reluctant to do.

Spotify's competitors approach things differently. Last.fm has long offered companies access to its database via an API without the need to install software. Access to that API was recently curtailed a little, but is still relatively open. Spotify does have an API, but its functionality is currently very limited.

Understandably then, Sonos offers Last.fm support on its music system, along with Napster, Deezer and internet radio support.

Meanwhile in London, while demonstrating the company's new remote, Sonos' senior director of Product Management, Mieko Kusano told us that she likes Spotify a lot, adding similar comments to her boss: "There's a logical match. We're very selective about which services we support, and Spotify makes the grade".

Full tags

Audio, Sonos, Spotify, Media streaming