Sony Ericsson is dusting off the Walkman, adding dial tone, and setting its sights on the mobile music market. I was but a young lad when I got my first Walkman. It was awesome. I should have bought stock in Duracell at the time too. As a full-time commuter from my home in Queens to lower Manhattan (for school) and upper Manhattan (for work) I burned through batteries at quite a clip. But I have to say, playing Kitaro at a ridiculously high volume was an awesome stress reducer. Of course, that Walkman was multipurpose in the sense that I could play many different types of music (and I listened to plenty of heavier fare) or toggle between cassettes and radio, but I certainly could not have reached out and touched anyone from that device. 

Sony Ericsson is not alone in this realm. Nokia announced yesterday that they are working together with Microsoft to allow consumers to enjoy music from the newly launched mobile music solution offered by Nokia and Loudeye to wireless operators on both Nokia handsets and on Windows XP-based PCs. 

The Sony Ericsson release can be found here.

Just thought I’d address a different kind of convergence for a change.