Motorola Mobility Ventures, the company’s investment unit, invested an unspecified amount in Catch Media’s cloud media service Play Anywhere. A digital rights locker platform, Play Anywhere gives consumer electronics manufacturers, retailers and others the ability to provide anytime/anywhere access to content across platforms including TVs, set-top boxes, smart phones and tablets. WME Entertainment is also a strategic investor.
Play Anywhere was unveiled last year with the UK launch of Carphone Warehouse’s Music Anywhere streaming service. Carphone Warehouse, a mobile phone retailer, plans to expand to the United States later in 2011.
Motorola, which is likely to integrate this service into its smart phones and just-released Xoom tablet, is not alone in investing in cloud-based services. HTC recently wrote a check for $48.5 million to Saffron Digital, which provides mobile content delivery services and $40 million investment to cloud-based gaming provider OnLive.