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Microsoft Also Wants Universal Music?
rampant mac writes "An article over at the New York Post is reporting Microsoft has expressed interest in buying Vivendi's Universal Music Group, setting up a possible bidding war between the software maker and rival Apple Computer, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Microsoft's interest is said to be at the level of "poking around, kicking the tires," but it has indeed had conversations with Vivendi executives about buying the music division, sources said."
Here is a story from a few days ago about Apple and Universal.
Look at UM's webpage, there's a (huge) list : Universal Music Group Artists.
according to their website they're the biggest selling record label with Ashanti, Erykah Badu, Mary J. Blige, Andrea Bocelli, Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, Eminem, Johnny Hallyday , Enrique Iglesias, Jay-Z, Elton John, Ronan Keating, Diana Krall, Limp Bizkit, Nelly, No Doubt, Florent Pagny, Luciano Pavarotti, Sandy & Junior, Shaggy, Sting, Texas, Shania Twain, U2 and Russell Watson. they also own pressplay
http://www.macwhispers.com - is never wrong, check them out.
This whole thing feels like M$ only did the same thing looking to check out what they could do
In Canada, we don't fancy things like socks
These "synerigies" rarely pay off. Both AOL and Vivendi had (at one time) deep pcokets (AOL from dial-up fees, Vivendi from utilities), and they were unable to make the confluence of technology and media, largely because there is no huge profit windfall and no pressing need. Music libraries can be licensed. With the value of the record industry dropping in aggregate, these license fees will only go down.
Just to make a list of the ones that jumped at me:
- Eminem
- Nirvana
- Garbage
- No Doubt
- Rammstein
- T.A.T.U.
- U2
- The Who
Then, also two opera biggies:
- Luciano Pavarotti
- Placido Domingo
And a couple of others *everyone* has heard of:
- B.B. King
- Beck
- Bee Gees
- Bloodhound Gang
- Bon Jovi
- Bryan Adams
- Chumbawamba
- Counting Crows
- Cranberries
- George Strait
- Elvis Costello
- Guns N' Roses
- Jimi Hendrix
- Leonard Bernstein
- Limp Bizkit
- Lynyrd Skynyrd
- Nine Inch Nails
- Peter Gabriel
- Sonic Youth
- Sum 41
- Suzanne Vega
- Texas
- Willie Nelson
...that alone is quite a bunch, that, copyright extensions being what they are, will be a cash cow for decades.
yes, we have no bananas
It's an integral part of MPEG4. It sounds much better than MP3. What it does have going against it is a strict licensing policy, at least as tough as MP3.
And we all know who'd win a bidding war.
...just maybe.
/. still hold a grudge against Apple based upon the Macs of the mid-90's, OS X is a Unice, Apple has embraced and aided OSS and Apple is a great commercial alternative to wintel.
If M$ got their hands on Universal, we could all pretty much kiss free use good-bye.
And I don't even think it would be a true bidding war, I think a lot of it would be "buddy buddy" talks within the RIAA as a peer consesus that M$ is good and Apple bad. Since I'm sure the RIAA and Universals shareholders would ardently support a greater partnership with a corporation that specializes in proprietary formats and who is heading up a coup d'etat on the users rights to own their machine.
In a twisted sense, such an organization that controlled a major media producer as well as the mechanism for media playback and the operating system for that mechanism to be run on is an easy target for an anti-trust. But, we've already seen how effective the US Federal Judges are at punishing M$...
But maybe, just maybe it will all finally hit close enough to home when a Fed. Judge buys a CD and find they can't play it without having a winCE device with windows media player installed that we might finally see some justice in action.
Man, I hope this post isn't FUD, but I am feeling fearful of the possible repercussions I as a consumer would experience if the articles speculation were to come true.
So, hey, everyone go help Apple, buy some stock and pump them up! Apple has done more than just say "Rip-Mix-Burn". They have built some great software to make professional quality media production easy and affordable and they are staunchly against DRM on their platform. Though I know many on
Personally, I think OS X has a better a chance of replacing Moms desktop that Linux does. And as it should. Let's see Linux replace Windows in the server market and OS X replace windows in the desktop market.
"As you understand it"?
Here's a link to the latest MS quarterly report at the SEC: Jan 10Q
It shows about $43 billion in cash and short-term investments. $5.5B in cash. (Why, they could almost afford to pay a RIAA judgement.)
Microsoft isn't a software company. It's a bank... Given that they have such market dominance in their original field, they have no way to grow except to expand into other areas. That's the problem with dominating a market; nowhere to go but down or out.
It has been settled long ago, and Apple Computer can do anything it wants to in the music biz.
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
You're mistaken in assuming that Apple can't focus on improvements in their core business while also (potentially) changing the music industry through Universal Music. Pixar has focussed succesfully on making great animated films, and an even better example is how Filemaker has retained focus on it's core databases while being a part of Apple. So, more than merely managing TWO companies, Jobs & Co. are managing MANY companies successfully - look at new developments with Spruce, Emagic, Silicon Grail, Nothing Real, Zayante, Prismo Graphics, Raycer, and other companies that have recently joined Apple and are doing well. In short, they are already managing good media companies, and maybe that's one reason they think they are qualified to manage another. They may also have some plans we don't know about that factor into the equation.
BTW, Titanium, though light, strong and a good heat sink, is comparatively soft and easy to scratch. That's why they wisely decided to paint their PowerBooks.