Slashdot Mirror
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.
It's called driving up the price for your competitor.
It would be my guess that both Apple and Microsoft would want to do the same thing - use music to promote and sell their products. However, if Microsoft bought Vivendi Music, would that not somehow be in violation of the anti-trust rulings? Couldn't Microsoft use their monopoly on desktop OS's to create a monopoly in legal music downloading?
I might be completely wrong, but somehow the prospect of Microsoft owning such a big label seems much scarier than Apple doing the same thing.
Look, Microsoft seems to think that ANY device with any computational capabilities at all for the mass market is *theirs*.
Is it any surpise that they'd want to get into this too? Imagine if that happened? You thought the RIAA was bad....hoo boy, you ain't seen nothing yet.
"For some in the beleaguered music industry - which has seen compact disc sales plummet in recent years due to rampant piracy"
Couldn't also be the fact that CDs are still damn
expensive and the recent mainstream music scene has
sucked, could it? Nah, let's blame the pirates!
Still in all, how interested would MS have been if
L'il Stevie hadn't made public his intent to hook up
with a Universal?
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...
The only reason MS is doing this is too raise the price of the music company.
Apple does not have the cash that MS has, and MS has tons of cash. MS can raise the price 30% and not blink, Apple would be hit hard.
Linux O Muerte!
I'm no economist, so maybe I'm wrong.
With the current economy, I'd rather see MS buy Vivendi.
Then they lose 6-7 billion down a hole of crappy music and Apple keeps it's money in the bank.
Vivendi is like a shitbox Ford Pinto. Jokes aside about the dangers of kicking ANYTHING on a Ford Pinto...it seems like cars and companies do have one thing in common- they both attract idiots who think they can fix 'em back up, make 'em stop leaking, polish the fenders, and show 'em off to the world, for a few weekends in the summer, a little elbow grease, and a little bit of money.
It NEVER turns out that way.
Apple's stock took a serious dip when this rumor(and I stress, rumor) hit. Why can't Apple focus on producing hardware that's more up-to-date performance-wise, more durable, more competitive cost-wise, and policies that are more customer-friendly? Apple has the WORST warranty/service policies, the WORST service system(ONE service center in Texas that has a horrible reputation)...and their hardware is pretty and has some neat stuff in it, but isn't up-to-date in processing power, isn't very price-competitive(except maybe the powerbooks), and is far from durable. Example: the very cool TiBook is PAINTED. What #$@!ing moron thought that up? Tough as nails Titanium shell, but then they PAINTED it. Smooth move, guys. Apple continuously demonstrates that they haven't learned from their hardware design mistakes; how long did it take them to make screen clutches that didn't break?(not rocket science- you just make them from something other than cheap pot metal!)
My opinion is that you shouldn't be looking for more stuff to put on your plate when you can't take care of what's ALREADY on your plate; if you can't manage one business successfully, what makes you think you'll manage TWO successfully? Besides, what makes anyone at Apple think they're even remotely qualified to run a media company? Oh, wait, I forgot about Jobs' ego, I guess that makes him qualified- thinks the world revolves around him.
Please help metamoderate.
With a power house like Universal, Window's media and it's copy protection is dead.
Go Apple! Free music for everyone!
Naw...
I like Apple having cash in hand instead of debt. A lack of debt keeps Apple in business and keeps PowerBooks coming out.
I'd wager that MS is showing interest to nuke Apple's hopes. Push the price up and get Apple into a bidding war and in the end let Apple buy it at a higher price than Apple wanted to. then while Apple scrambles around shoring up finances and cutting small software projects, start cutting support for Apple at MS.
As for this "effectively lock Apple out from some of the best musicians" From looking at Universal's artists, I don't see much that is in the "best" catagory.
True. But MS really has no interest in getting into music except to stifle competition that flows against their business interest.
Normally, I wouldn't have a problem with it. This would be the normal part of business. Except MS is a monopoly, and their buying power comes directly from illegal activity.
The main reason MS can name themselves is because they are one of the few companies which could intersect their current business model with the music industry -and- have the raw cash to (or stock without losing 20% or so on their current stock in a stock for stock trade; iow, many companies could do a stock buyout, but not without a hit to the general stock used in the buy).
They know this. More importantly, they know this is a threat to their DRM and trusted computing model. So they are either directly interested in curtailing that, or are throwing their hat in the ring "just to see" (which they seem to be stating anyways).
Well, anyone who does something "just to see" has an inkling in truly buying something, but with MS, given their cash reserve to back them, there's another business driven decision--it's also to drive the cost of the sale up.
iow, if Apple has $6 billion in cash, if MS can drive the price up to $8 billion, Apple may withdraw their bid. MS dumps $8 billion, which is little to them, and halts a competitor from offering an alternative business model.
Even without a sale, 2 bidders causes a price war, even if just momentary. Apple may have started their bid at $4 billion, driven it to over $5 billion with their remaining cash or stock. Now MS throw their hat into the ring, driving it to $6 billion for certain. Apple no longer has $1 billion to spend buying some other company, related tech, for R&D, or to recumperate during harder times.
Yes, for all the 'MS is not bad' sayers out their, remember that MS has $40+ billion dollars in cash. If you are their investor, you should be pissed that money has not been returned to you in dividends. If you are a person who believes in fair competition, whenever MS says they "innovate", well, they have $40 billion to innovate and to prosper R&D, and they are doing absolutely little with it. Imagine the computing ideas and prototypes to market models that would stem from a 2% annual return on that money. Even if you like MS, MS isn't competiting because right now, they could blow the doors off of modern computing, and they aren't doing a thing, happily entrenched with their OEM agreements and such--aka Windows XP.
Innovation indeed. I'm no Apple lover, but at least Apple pretends to come out with stuff that at least look and feels a bit different than is par for the course.
Vivendi is looking to pay off $8B debt. Universal Music is for sale, however, the music business is not doing that great, and numerous companies try to bid down the price.
Hence the decision to advertise anything, even remote interest, as strong decision to buy Universal Music. If Vivendi has their way, pretty soon stories about hundreds of buyers from General Motors to Wal-Mart asking to purchase Universal Music Group will be posted all over the Net.
In fact, though, there's just one real buyer, and no, it's no Microsoft, it's some other media conglomerate, possible Viacom or News Corp.
Possible reasons (depending on how its implemented):
- Guaranteed to find the song at all times, if it's available.
- Guaranteed complete download.
- Guaranteed that it's actually what it says it is.
- Videos.
- Superior organization - catalogs by category, artist, date, etc.
- Superior search capabilities.
- Descriptions, reviews, articles and news about new non-mainstream releases.
- Articles about past works that have been forgotten, or were never popular but seserved to be. When companies can make as much from their archives as new releases, there's an incentive to increase exposure to older artists.
- Discussion forums? Chat rooms?
- On-line interviews with the artists.
- Information on tours, purchase tickets to events on-line - or win them for free in contests.
- Live performance recordings.
- Customized streaming audio/internet radio feed (click "No Boy Bands" option... or maybe "All Boy Bands").
- Order T-shirts, fan magazines, other merchandise (and autographed CDs!?).
Some could be free (most artists have a web site now with some of this stuff), the rest would be value-added.