Microsoft Is Spinning Nokia's MixRadio Streaming Service Off Into A Separate Company

MixRadio, the streaming music app available on all Nokia and Windows phones through Microsoft , is being spun off.

The tech giant announced recently that as part of major cuts throughout entertainment departments and projects, MixRadio would no longer be a Microsoft entity. Instead of shutting the app down entirely, it will become a standalone company. The app will still be loaded on all smartphones operating on Windows Phone technology, but it will no longer be limited to just that one subset of the market. On its own, it can go after users with other systems, which opens MixRadio up to a huge number of new potential customers.

The app originally launched back in 2011 and came preloaded on the first phone Nokia created for Windows. Back then it was simply called “Nokia Music”, and it’s capabilities were fairly limited. It had a feature called “Mix Radio”, which was essentially a collection of curated playlists, each one focusing on a genre, style, decade, etc. These lists were created in house by a team at Nokia, and limited users to what had been pre-selected.

The service changed in 2013, starting with the name. Losing the Nokia tagline (a name that’s been losing worth for years now), it was rebranded as “MixRadio”, after the feature that tested most positively with users. In addition, other features were added, including unlimited skips when it came to songs people didn’t want to hear—something they still have over internet radio-industry leader Pandora . The newly-minted MixRadio was also available online and on devices not produced by Nokia. These new options came at a small price—less than $10 a month).

Nokia has never made their user numbers public, but they will say it is in the millions. While that’s a vague number, if it’s true it would make them a potentially serious player in the field. While the app has been around for several years, it is losing the popularity game to newer entrants like Beats Music, Rdio, Spotify, and handfuls of others. Now that the company is going out on its own, one of the first things they’ll need to worry about is becoming more well known—a tough job in an already crowded market.

The loss of MixRadio is only one of the changes made at Microsoft that show they are no longer interested in almost anything to do with entertainment. The company is shuttering Xbox Entertainment Studios, a wing of the Xbox franchise that created content such as television-like programs and the like exclusively for Xbox. These cuts have plenty wondering about the future of Xbox Music, yet another music streaming service that may or may not live to see another day.