With its new and vastly improved portable player, Slacker’s trek may have entered “the next generation.” but its U.S. plans may be moving away from “the final frontier.” Slacker long had plans for a car dock that would enable it to receive programming via satellite, but VP of Marketing Jonathan Sasse told me last week that the company is now looking to leverage its satellite technology primarily in developing economies due to the strength of its caching technology and alternative high-speed delivery methods becoming more viable.
When I asked him if the merger of Sirius and XM, which looked far less likely to happen in Slacker’s early days, had anything do with the decision, he said it did not. The proposed price for Sirius XM’s music-only tier is competitive with Slacker’s premium radio option. Slacker maintains that it still has the upper hand, though, because of the ability to skip tracks, even as a limited (but in my opinion generous) option for non-paying listeners.