This is far from a radical idea, and it certainly seems to be the direction in which the music industry is heading. But technology consultation/analysis firm Gartner has suggested a swift move towards digital-first releases, sometime before Christmas of 2009.
Online music distribution is accounting for a larger percentage of the market share. Even if many listeners (like ALARM online editor Scott Morrow) prefer to store their albums on shelves rather than on computers, Gartner argues that moving to a “burn on demand” system for physical copies would reduce the cost for labels to anticipate demand.
Read Gartner’s press release here.