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

Re:One Word

[Enderandrew]

What if they want to just use Lala as a gateway for directing people to buy music off iTunes?

People search for music. They get the Lala sample, and then iTunes swoops in for the sale.

Seems very logical to me.