Samsung Buys mSpot Cloud Music Service

Samsung may have spoiled any big CTIA reveals with the launch of the Galaxy S III last week, but that doesn't mean it can't make some corporate waves. The Korean manufacturer has announced that it's purchased mSpot, a cloud music and movie service focused on mobile apps. While Samsung didn't announce its intentions beyond tablet and smartphone integration, its desire for both media sales and cloud infrastructure services across its many device categories is well known.

"mSpot shares our vision to bring a best-in class cloud and streaming entertainment experience to consumers, and they've backed it up with great technical solutions from a great engineering team," said Samsung Media Solutions Center Senior Vice President TJ Kang. Samsung announced its AllShare cloud storage platform at CES in January, which already handles video, photos and music. This being the case, it isn't clear why Samsung bought the startup, though a talent or infrastructure acquisition is always a possibility. mSpot offers cloud storage of music and movies, something that AllShare doesn't currently do.

Samsung's Galaxy S III event displayed the company's ambitions in more ways than one. They already manufacture more smartphones than any other company on the planet, but executives and product managers spent an enormous amount of time on stage explaining the new phone's software, much of which imitates Apple's iPhone features and replaces several of the software functions built into Android. With the purchase of mSpot, an expanded movie and music offering in AllShare or a replacement service would seem to be on the horizon.