Quigley Prepares To Push Dataplay Format

Former Capitol Records Nashville president/CEO Pat Quigley may have left the label life with his decision to take a job at Boulder, Colo.-based technology start-up DataPlay (BillboardBulletin, Aug. 2), but he will still be in the thick of the music business as it transitions into a new century.

In his new role as senior VP/chief marketing officer, which he begins Sept. 1 at DataPlay's headquarters, Quigley will be working to win over label and hardware partners for the company's new eponymous storage format, which can be used both as a blank medium for holding music downloaded from the Internet and for selling prerecorded music.

"I think music is ready to move on to a new format," says Quigley. "In fact, I think it has to. And so I think if we can explain this properly to the labels, they will be as excited about it as I am. I've already had some meetings with the major retailers, and the reaction there has been pretty positive as well. They are ready for this."

The 500-megabyte-capacity music/books/games DataPlay storage format is roughly the size of a quarter and can hold four hours' worth of prerecorded or downloaded CD-quality music in a variety of codecs, according to the company. Unlike flash memory, which is also used for the portable digital music devices that DataPlay is targeting, DataPlay discs are masterable. They can also be used to hold "locked" content, such as extra tracks, that a user can "unlock" via computer.

Also unlike flash cards, the medium is designed to be very low-priced: Blanks are expected to sell for $5-$10.

The discs are not compatible with existing portable digital devices, but manufacturers including S3/Diamond Rio have already committed to integrating DataPlay technology into future products. Initial DataPlay hardware and software is expected in the first half of 2001.

Chairman/CEO Steve Volk says that DataPlay is working with Universal Music Group, which is an investor in the company, as well as other content providers to secure partnerships for prerecorded content. "Look for DataPlay to be making some of these partnership announcements in the next few months," he says.

DataPlay has also elected Universal eLabs president Larry Kenswil to its board. Toshiba, Samsung, and S3 are also investors in the company.