Pono music store closing temporarily...

Just got this email...

PONOMUSIC - SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
To the PonoMusic Community - our loyal customers and supporters:

We hope you are enjoying the summer and the music you've purchased at ponomusic.com.

We have some news that we want to share with you.
One of our key infrastructure partners - Omnifone - has been acquired by a large company. An impact of this purchase is that all Omnifone's supply relationships are being terminated, effectively immediately. Omnifone has been the exclusive content provider for PonoMusic. Consequently, our music library will be temporarily suspended for purchases effective July 20th . Please rest assured that our contractual relationships with all the major music labels remain fully intact and will transition to our new platform.

In anticipation of this announcement, some time ago we began negotiations to move our content provision to 7digital, the leading independent music content/services platform. This process is now well underway, but not yet complete. During the transition, the ponomusic.com store will be under construction and not functional. We ask that you please complete any music purchases you were considering, or wish to undertake, by Tuesday, July 19th.

Our PonoCommunity will continue as normal and we will keep everyone up to date with our progress.

With our partners at 7digital, we will determine the timeframe of this transition. Right now, we believe this transition process that will take several weeks to achieve. In the meantime, please stay connected to the site and the community and keep listening to and enjoying the music you have. This transition is our highest priority and will remain so until we are live again and providing our customers with seamless access to music in the highest quality available.

On a positive note, this partnership brings fresh opportunities to extend our catalogue of music. We look forward to having an even wider range of titles to offer you.

Thank you for your understanding, patience, and support.
The Ponomusic Team.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION SALE:
Because of the inconvenience this is causing, we want to offer you an Under Construction Sale that will last from now until 11:59PM PST, Tuesday, July 19, 2016. At checkout please use the coupon code:

PONOMUSICONLY20

Redeem this code for 20% off $30 or more in the Cart!

 

Yeah, I received that too, but really don't know exactly what it means to me.

 

I don't understand why a business would buy another one and then turn around and cancel all the money it was making from its base.

 

The Pono website is wonkier than usual this morning. Can't log in.

What is Neil up to?

 

Kill competition, is one reason. Happens all the time in the tech industry.

 

It's commonly called an "acquihire" where you don't want the product, you want the people who built the product. Conceivably, the team that built the Pono infrastructure is far more valuable than a functioning Pono infrastructure.

 

There's that as well. Well put.

 

Probably the website is just overloaded with people taking advantage of the 20% off sale and getting things they have been putting off, knowing the store won't be available for a while.

 

Well this is a timely thread as I was going to finally get Deja Vu before the weekend; but I am guessing I will have to wait for the new provider. I always had a lot of fits and starts downloading from Pono on a good day much less with the added traffic of a sale and deadline, so fingers crossed things improve.

 

Typically incomprehensible corporate speak. I wish they would just use plain English, since Pono is in fact more akin to a family business. Oh well...

 

I had the exact opposite impression. It is a very detailed and informational statement as to what is going on. Corporate speak as I usually see it is trying to hide things behind legalize etc. I don't see the there at all. Very few companies would have explained this situation with the detail they have provided us.

 

The store will be closed for several weeks after July 19th.
There is a 20% off sale until that time.

Does that help?

 

I hope this isn't like when they put paper over the windows of a restaurant and put up a sign that says "CLOSED FOR REMODELING" and then they never re-open...

 

Hmmm... From www.omnifone.com:

"On 4 May 2016, Omnifone Limited and Omnifone Group Limited were placed into Administration in the High Court of Justice, with Andrew Duncan and Neil Bennett, of Leonard Curtis Business Solutions Group, appointed as Joint Administrators.

The affairs, business and property of the Companies are being managed by the Joint Administrators, who act as agents for the Company and without personal liability."​

So it appears that they have been in trouble for some time.

 

I never thought about this scenario before (Pono losing their music source). I'm not a huge purchaser of hires files but this is a little troubling. I wonder if this is how HDTracks and the others acquire their music? I assumed that they were getting them straight from the labels since this other company was never mentioned before. It's probably not much different than managing physical product. Still a bit of a shock. I'm going to pass on this discounted purchase today.
I've not had a lot of trouble buying from Pono but it will probably be busy today which will only increase the likelyhood of download issues. I'll pass on that experience.

 

I couldn't reach the $30 threshold. I guess that's both good and bad.

 

I bought two albums this morning and while the website was a little slow navigating, the downloads completely quickly and flawlessly.

 

Any future purchases will be Postponoed ?

 

So Pono is now just gonna be one of several 7Digital satellite websites like Technics Tracks. If you have a 7Digital account, there's no point registering with Pono.

 

Does 7Digital have the Pono Promise where they will upgrade you to a higher resolution release of any of your past purchases?

Pono has that one very unique perk that has been very valuable to me.

 

They say content delivery will be moved over to 7Digital.

Just looked over there, and they don't appear to have the complete Neil Young catalog. And they only have Harvest in mp3.

Guess that will be rectified.

Anyway, I wasn't familiar with 7digital, but it looks pretty good. Good selections, competitive prices, easy downloads (unlike HDtracs and Pono).

 

Yep, if you look up Omnifone, then you can see that they have been in difficulty for a few years, and it was only a matter of time before they went bust. The administrators clearly don't see a future in the existing business if all the supply relationships have been terminated.

 

I have purchased a few times from 7digital when their prices have been competitive. They seem to have a pretty comparable library to what Pono had, but obviously some exclusive content will have to be added as you noted.

One thing they have that Pono has been talking about is the ability to redownload past purchases at any time so I look forward to Pono gaining that.

 

Thank you both for explaining. I get it now!

 

That's encouraging.