SONY Drops ATRAC and Adopts MP3, WMA and AAC

We could not believe it when we received the press release yesterday. SONY decided to drop its proprietary music file format, aka ATRAC, and to support from now on MP3, WMA and AAC (non protected). This is a revolution, but probably the only way for SONY to better compete with Apple on the music player market. For years, ATRAC has been seen as a major brake to SONY mobile player development; future models from the Japanese giant will not support ATRAC anymore.
By adding support for non DRM-loaded AAC music file, SONY offer consumers the possibility to play music file legally purchased DRM-free tracks from iTunes Plus store. SONY is probably betting that in a near future all music Majors will offer DRM-free catalogue via online stores, making SONY players a good alternative to iPods. For once, we hope SONY is right with its expectation for a global DRM free online music offer.