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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."
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?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Ah yes, the purchase of Lala will not, therefore, make Apple present throughout the universe.
Google Search for any song online via Google and Lala brought a stream right to you. First listen is free, after that you have to pay. Why would Apple buy them? Considering most sane people use Google and Lala doesn't require something like iTunes, Lala was in a better position to bring music people want directly to them. This is just eliminating the competition before they got too big. Can I get an Antitrust Amen?
"Competition is sin." -John D. Rockefeller
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
The initial NYT article about the acquisition said it was only talent related, while a more recent Reuters article has the following quote:
The truth is, nobody really knows what Apple is up to. Which is, of course, just how Apple likes it. I wouldn't put it past them to have deliberately leaked a couple of conflicting stories just to keep everyone guessing.
This space unintentionally left unblank.
Immanent...I don't think that word means what you think it means.
iTunes runs on Windows. How would making it iTunes-only restrict it to the Mac platform?
How did this get modded insightful?
Right now, I have iTunes that I use to update my iPod and LaLa which I primarily use to listen to music when I'm on ANY web connected computer. I use LaLa over iTunes at home because I have streams for some songs that I have a paid license to listen to on LaLa that I didn't pay the extra 79 cents to download, so they aren't available in my iTunes.
With LaLa, if I have an internet connection, I can listen to my songs and streams from anywhere, which means I don't need copies of all of my MP3s (or whatever) on my laptop, my work machine, my home machine, etc. It's amazing, and stream licenses are only 10 cents per song.
LaLa also provides a music mover app, which watches my iTunes directory and automatically unlocks the streams in LaLa of the tracks of whatever CD I just imported on iTunes.
Suffice it to say, I love it, and if they integrated the two products, I'd love it even more.
--"insert clever quote here"
Is Google competition for iTunes?
I've honestly not ever heard that before.
Google is competition for everything, it's just a matter of how soon.
It's a dessert topping and a floor polish.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Your post makes AT&T's network cry.
Learn about Photography Basics.
Lala offers a feature that lets you upload your iTunes library and keep it synced; I always described it as "like having access to your iTunes library from anywhere online," so I can see Apple being interested from that angle.
1. Buy the patents
2. Compete with Spotify
Of course not. They're defined by their hardware choices. . . at least if they're seen with a Zune.
I kid.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Tinky Winky, Dipsy and Po?
I saw a Zune in a store once. When I got home, 5 people had unfriended me on FaceTube.
I think that as arrogant as one might say that Apple is, they have realized that the world of internet/asp services is much different than something that you totally control, in a closed environment of an OS. They learned that the hard way through the numerous shortcomings of Me, a service which was very ambitious, but today still remains very unrealiable and has numerous shortcomings in all categories (mail, calendar, contacts, photos, idisk) when you compare it with other free alternatives. When Me was initially announced, for a brief moment Apple had the chance to turn the market upside down, and be a leader in the ASP/cloud services arena. Today they are not even considered a strong player - Me remains a supplementary service for only a small part of the iPhone base of users. Consider what could have happened with Me if Apple had purchased a number of successful services (Yousendit, Dropbox, Plaxo, etc.) and combined them under one umbrella - their offering would be unmatched, they would have a brilliant team of developers, and today they would probably be leaders in the market. I believe that this is the basic thinking behind Lala's acquisition: they are buying time, which is the next best thing after money: they are buying time they have lost, against Lala.com, Last.fm. They are buying time that they would loose if today they began to develop their own streaming service. They are buying time that it would take them to learn the mistakes others did. With the cash reserves that Apple has right now, if it follows a clever acquisition strategy it can pretty soon gain a significant presence in internet, one that in time would rival that of Yahoo, Microsoft and perhaps even Google. If the rumors surrounding the recent sale of AdMob are true, it seems that Apple is implementing such a plan.
Has the Windows version of iTunes aver lacked feature parity with the Windows version?
I would have to say no.
Wait, Apple put DRM back on music? When did that happen?
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.
First of all $4 billion for the division not just for iTunes. Second, that's revenue not profit. In many businesses, if the wholesale cost is 70% of revenue, the product is not going to make much profit. 30% left for overhead means the profit may be 5-10% if the business runs lean. So yearly that would put iTunes at $100 million profit maybe. That sounds like a lot but it isn't considering the amount of effort to acquire the profit.
Except Apple has done everything opposite to what you would expect if they were trying to gain more share. Converting their entire catalog to non-DRM'ed only helps their competitors. Apple sells music because their customers want it and no one else was going to help their customers.
Here's where the acquisition of Lala to remove a competitor doesn't make sense financially. How many much more in sales would Apple get in eliminating Lala? A few million maybe. That translates to tens of thousands in profit. And how much did Apple pay for Lala? If they spent $10 million, it would take decades to pay back.
If you look all the major acquisitions of Apple since Steve took control, every one was for a particular purpose or product, not to undercut competition as MS would do:
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
And the Windows version has COM interops (so, VBScript support).
Does either version have a graphic equaliser?
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".