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Best Buy Coughs Up $54 Million For Napster

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the so-i-heard-you-got-robbed dept.

MarketWatch reports that Best Buy has decided to toss $54 million into an acquisition of Napster. All told, the deal amounts to around $121 million, with about $67 million headed towards getting cash and short-term investments from Napster's balance sheet. "The deal will give Best Buy an online digital music retail outlet as well as a subscription streaming service that has about 700,000 subscribers. That could help Best Buy to compete against retail giant Wal-Mart, which has its own online digital music offering."

3 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Can anyone explain... by Darundal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...how this wasn't a giant waste of cash and a sign that Best Buy is run by PHBs? Honestly, I understand the reasoning (online is where music distribution is, at this point, which cuts into their bottom line), but the Napster brand is, at least last I knew, pretty much useless as a brand. If I am wrong, someone please correct me.

    1. Re:Can anyone explain... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wow, it just goes to show how out of touch geeks are.

      Ask an average non-geek about napster and they will know automatically that its a music outlet much like itunes. They won't know that it sucks, they won't know much about it at all, but it is a well known brand. So yes if marketed correctly it could be very profitable.

      But it will still suck

  2. Re:This is interesting by UnknowingFool · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously do you think Apple is scared of Best Buy? Apple isn't scared of Wal-mart which is larger, has a better IT infrastructure, and can get better deals with the media companies. The main reason Apple isn't scared is that iTunes Store exists only to sell more iPods and AppleTVs. It makes some profit but the company's future isn't bet on it. If iTunes Store were to shut down tomorrow due, it really would not hurt Apple. The problem for Best Buy leveraging downloads to sell mp3 players is that they offer nothing special and are really late to the game. Which DRM would they use? PlaysForSure? We all saw what happened to other MS partners. That would also eliminate their iPod customers as well. No DRM. They have to compete with Amazon and Apple with 700K singles compared to millions for each for Amazon and Apple. Would their integration be as easy to use as Apple or even MS Zune or would it be like every other player out there?

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