Om Malik thinks digital music systems are hot:
The latest is San Francisco-based Olive, which has just launched Symphony, a wireless music hub powered by IBM PowerPC.
It has an 80GB hard-drive, which holds up to 20,000 songs. The integrated CD database identifies, tags and archives the CD automatically. The device had a panasonic CD burner, and has a built in 802.11g access point to connect to the Internet and share the music wirelessly.
The external hard drives can be connected to the device using the USB connectors. In all other aspects its pretty much like Sonos. It even has its own wireless add-on called Sonata. Instead of requiring another special box, you can simply plug the speakers/stereo/headphone right into (Sonata) and listen to music.
Sounds great until you price it. The Symphony, available mid August, starts at $899. The wireless music receiver Sonata will be priced at $199.
The Sonos digital music system also lets you play all your digital music, all over your house and control it all from the palm of your hand. It also supports iTunes 4.9 so users can access podcasts, in addition to their iTunes playlists, on the music system.
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