In continuing our recent coverage of the mobile music sector, we found a truly interesting article from MobileMentalism (MM).

MM makes some great points about how device convergence is different for the mobile phone is different for the camera than for the portable music player. In the case of digital cameras, stand-alone cameras still offer an advantage over their camera-phone counterparts at the same price. This leaves a place for both combined and stand-alone cameras in the market.

Music capable cellphones though offer almost the same functionality as stand-alone music players such as iPods and Mp3 players. While this is true, battery life is still a major concern for consumers in the phone market. The devices may have the same capabilities, but the functionalities are very different.

Research has shown than talk-time/standby-time is the single most valued phone function. When consumers are told that listening to two hours of mobile music uses over half (phone-dependant) of the batter life, consumers’ desires for a mobile phone that plays music changes drastically. Unfortunately, phone manufacturers are not likely to give this type of full information to consumers.

The MM article continues to look at some interesting possibilities for changes in the music market and distribution as convergence with the cellphone begins to take hold. While we disagree on when this will happen for reasons such as battery life, we do believe that it will happen in time. MM discusses the possibilities for MobSharing of music. MobSharing may not become the major distribution channel in the future, but it is likely to become an important means to share new music and monitor trends.