Apple Buys Lala Music Streaming, But Why?

Apple has snapped up music streaming biz Lala in what many initially thought to be a move to step beyond the strict download market of iTunes. On closer inspection it seems that Lala was a somewhat less-than-ideal target and Apple may just be gunning for ready-made engineering talent. "On balance, the purchase appears to give Apple the chance to bring in engineers that will be useful now, and could be even more so if it chooses to enter streaming or subscription services. But, for the moment, there's nothing about the purchase that seems to provide the company with any key technologies it was missing in terms of diving into markets. Until another company demonstrates that there's money to be made (or iPods to be sold) through streaming, there's no reason to think that a move of this sort is imminent."

Comments

Google

[bill_mcgonigle]

Lala.com is the most frequent entry in the Google Audio search for searches I've done. If Apple can control Lala, they can largely control or hamper Google's competition against iTunes.

Does there need to be a more complex explanation than simple competitive pressures?

Re:Google

[hansamurai]

“parent directory” mp3 OR wma OR ogg OR wav Band/Singer -html -htm -download -links

Re:Google

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

It looks more like "market shaping" to me - streaming is a contradictory market strategy to the "pay per download" model that Itunes uses.

Lala's business model incorporates pay per download as part of it, rather than contradicting it as you claim. You search Google and a link pops up. First listen is free for music discovery. You can pay a small amount each time to stream it successive times or you can buy it and download it as well as be able to stream that song whenever you want. It neatly incorporates the two models. A cynic might claim it eliminates the revenue from people repurchasing songs they downloaded then failed to backup and lost somehow, but I don't think that is a significant source of revenue for Apple. Rather, the goodwill from letting people re-download songs will make for happier customers, enhance the Apple brand, and lead to more hardware sales, which is where Apple makes the real money.

Re:Logic Pro anyone? One less Windows product

[Anonymous Coward]

Has the Windows version of iTunes aver lacked feature parity with the Windows version?

I'll assume the second "Windows version" is a Mac version - yes, the Mac version has Applescript support.

Re:iPhone streaming?

[ColdWetDog]

Right. Apple can't even keep Mobile Me up for more than a week at a time. It's slow, buggy and clumsy. All it does is email, file synch and host some pictures. They've been at this for several years now and really have yet to make it a quality product. Unless this is an attempt to hire some competent people in the 'cloud' business, I don't see it.

Re:Streaming Music is a Logical Extension of iTune

[Duradin]

Wait, Apple put DRM back on music? When did that happen?

Re:What happened to Apple...

[Anonymous Coward]

They did. It was settled years ago.

"the High Court of Justice handed down a judgement on 8 May 2006 in favour of Apple Computer. The companies announced a final settlement of the dispute on 5 February 2007." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer

Re:Streaming Music is a Logical Extension of iTune

[Duradin]

Advanced Audio Coding. It's part of MPEG4. Apple *HAD* used DRM, but it wasn't part of the AAC spec itself. Now (in the US) the music is DRM free and has been for some time.

Re:Logic Pro anyone? One less Windows product

[Kalriath]

And the Windows version has COM interops (so, VBScript support).

Does either version have a graphic equaliser?