It's no doubt that you've heard of Steve Jobs' open letter asking record labels to drop DRM. There of course has been much speculation over what prompted him to take such a stand. I think I've discovered it, and that reason is the iPhone.

Brent Schlender of Fortune Magazine makes a very compelling argument for this case. We know that you won't be allowed to download music or videos to the iPhone wirelessly. However, we do know that the wireless transfer rate will be fast enough to support such downloads.

What Brent suggests is that perhaps Steve's motive might “be a gambit to force Apple's content suppliers to renegotiate their deals and make it possible to download music and video directly onto the iPhone “. Sounds logical to me, we'll have to see how this one plays out.

Apple's ulterior motive for unlocking music? [via fortune]