Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft Also Wants Universal Music?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the now-thats-a-scary-scenario dept.

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.

6 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Riiight by 17028 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's called driving up the price for your competitor.

  2. Anti-Trust Implications by manly_15 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  3. This is a surprise? by deanj · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  4. My favorite line from the article... by Surlyboi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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...
  5. Re:Damn by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  6. This is about using software to sell hardware by dubbayu_d_40 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I can't believe no one has pointed this out. Apple is not doing this to help prevent copying - quite the opposite.

    With a power house like Universal, Window's media and it's copy protection is dead.

    Go Apple! Free music for everyone!