I see improvements to MobileMe in the horizon... I don't think Apple will go for a streaming via subscription thingie like the rest, but rather make the MobileMe platform/community/functions more complete, taking the household sharing of music a step further. Still, with reasonable restrictions etc., but in a way that will lure more people over to the Mac platform.
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Apple's Purchase Price for Lala: $80 Million?
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It's insane that Apple puts a 30 second sample camp on a song. How many songs take longer than 30 seconds to get past an intro or dramatically change after the intro?
Somebody should stick to writing about technology and leave the finance to others...
Personally, I think it's pretty obvious what's going on here and to prove it I've written a blog post.Basically it would be a great new feature for Mobile Me, it would be a great new service for iTunes and I think it addresses the issue of people not being able to store their entire music libraries on the iPhone/iPod.
http://www.evanagee.com/blog/2009/12/07/apple-acquires-lala-com-but-why/
Just how many people do you think can't store their entire collections on their iPhone even if they spent that $100 on a larger iPhone? What percentage of people do you really think have more than a 32 GB collection? Half of 1%?
Though your point is taken, the actual percentage is probably a lot lower than most people thing. I'm willing to bet with 110GB of music I'm in a very small minority.
Yes, but we're talking 32GB, not 110GB. I have just about that much because I listen to a lot of audio books, and I don't think I'm in that small a minority. I'd like to be able to load movies and tv shows onto my phone, but never have any space for them.
I think it's usually a 30 second clip of the middle of the song, not just the first 30 seconds.
If Apple were to open the iTunes store catalog to a monthly subscription service, similar to Rhapsody, I'd sign up (assuming it would play through Sonos
Same here. I currently subscribe to Rhapsody but would drop them in a second if Apple came out with a music subscription service. I like the ability to listen to any song that I want to for a monthly price more than purchasing per album or track.
My CD trading credits at LaLa (for discs that I sent out in trade, waiting for matches to my Wants List) disappeared with the acquisition. True cost: $80M + everyone's lost CD credits...
That is why I believe cash is king. All this points **** is just another way to screw the unsuspecting.
I'm not that surprised that Apple invested in the streaming music area with all the momentum that Spotify has in Europe. The iPhone-app is an iTunes killer where I keep all my favourite songs buffered (about a couple of gigs..) and only some odd albums on iTunes that haven't come around to spotify yet. And when I feel like listening to something new I just search spotify and stream it while listening to it.. all this for a monthly fee of 9 euros.. I think it's a no-brainer
Agree, but only because most of the people buy & store music in mp3 or aac formats. If you start buying & storing music in aif or alac formats (unfortunately iTunes does not read flac format) than you need at least 5 time more storage space.
The fact they they internally wrote down the value of their investment in the company has nothing to do with the value they would be paid when the company is bought out. They will be paid out relative to the percentage of the company they own, so the fact that internally they said "we should stop holding 20M of value for this investment on our balance sheet" doesn't have any impact on what percentage of the company they own.
If they were that much of a plumb why did they go soliciting a takeover and accept the deal so quickly? It seems like they were looking for a quick way to cash out.
On the other hand Apple's action is reminiscent of Microsoft's method of operation in the '80s and '90s, where they were quick to buy out technologies that were potential threats, well before they became actual threats (and usually just to kill them).
well 80 million isn't bad, considering how much they have. but will they get their money's worth?