Nokia’s MixRadio music streaming service is aiming to spin off from Microsoft as a part of the layoffs the company announced yesterday. The service will still be pre-loaded onto Windows Phone handsets, but a successfully spun off MixRadio would also have the ability to make apps for other platforms, including Android and iOS, according to a report by the Guardian.
“I’ve been meeting with potential investors around the world in the last few weeks,” MixRadio chief Jyrki Rosenberg told the Guardian. “We have very strong interest from investors in the US, Europe and Asia, and we remain open for further discussions.”
The service allows users to stream music from a variety of mixes for free, or pay a small monthly fee for ad-free streaming and higher quality music. It’s a part of an incredibly crowded industry right now, with a number of players including Spotify, Pandora, Deezer, Rhapsody, Google Play Music, Rdio and Beats Music (which Apple agreed to acquire earlier this year) all jockeying to be the one app that provides users with their tunes.
MixRadio isn’t the only entertainment-focused product that got the axe in Microsoft’s reorganization. Microsoft Entertainment Studios, which was focused on creating original video content for the Xbox One, will be closing in the coming months, though some of the original programming the team was working on will live on.
Overall, the company announced it would be cutting 18,000 jobs, including 12,500 positions related to its acquisition of Nokia’s Devices and Services business.
