It seems to me, that Sony, being the major electronic innovator and manufacturer that it is, should provide a NetMD upload function for several reasons, in addition to the many reasons that other petitioners have listed. Sony themselves has already produced several PC products that incorperate MD Drives or recorders. the MD Data format and drives in 1996 promised the demise of the floppy and the introducion of the merging of digital audio and data. Current PC system offerings by Sony, such as the VAIO MX Series desktops also seem to make a perfect integration of audio and data, but only to just barely miss the entire point of the whole convergence concept altogether. If you want buyers to see the advantages of the MiniDisc format over the stiff competition from other fomats (all offered by yourselves, I may add), such as CD-R/RW, MP3, the various DVD formats, and others... you may want to consider taking emphasis off of "Sony Magic Gate" solid state MP3 players a little, and show the world that MD can do the job of ALL other digital audio devices in ALL environments. NetMD can be a great tool for uploading and downloading digital audio from and to portable and stationary MD units, but only if it can do the most fundamental thing that all competing formats can do; download *and* upload, and to do this at high speeds, like a CD Drive on a PC, or a n MP3 transfer to a portable player.
Please dont make any more mistakes in marketing the MiniDisc format, like the confusion you made in the early 1990's of replacing CD's with MD's. Sony now faces a similar confusion in the marketplace, but now it is with so many other great digital audio formats. Sony has finally proven that MiniDisc can replace the aniquated Analog Compact Cassette, and is great for transferring analog audio from all sources to MiniDiscs. MiniDisc also remains the only affordable, digital portable recording medium, and is great at capturing live audio and from the world at large while on the move, and bringing it home.
Now you need to make it the format that can do what all those MP3 players out there can't; UPLOAD the audio content and to do it QUICKLY like ripping a CD or trading an MP3 file, otherwise, it will be left to suffer in the dust... again. Let's show the world that MiniDisc can evolve and fill every person's void as a SINGLE format that fits everywhere!
-- Thomas J Cooney, digital audio enthusiast
-- http://www.starbasestudios.com
-- http://www.eternalbpm.com