Apple Inc., a 33-year-old computer software and consumer electronics corporation, has agreed to purchase Lala, a four-year old music-distribution start-up. Presently, Lala offers a service that allows users to either download a song, or pay a small fraction of the download price to stream the song an unlimited number of times. Users can also upload their preexisting music collection to Lala's server to later stream from any device with an internet connection. Although Lala's user base seems to be satisfied with the service, the company has failed to achieve mainstream success, leaving their financial prospects in a dubious state.
Apple Inc., whose success in recent years has been defined by their paired domination of the digital music distribution and digital music player markets, is obviously monitoring the success of mobile music streaming services like Pandora for iPhone. Cloud computing, while an alarmingly accurate fulfillment of the dystopian fictions of our upbringings, seems to be the direction in which media-access is developing. A major fear about cloud-based storage, that data could be lost should the host go bankrupt, would be easily abetted by the financial stability and public reputation of a corporation like Apple.
The success of the iPod over the numerous challengers that have sprung up throughout the years has been largely dependent on its exclusive compatibility with iTunes. Now, facing serious competition in the mobile device market from Android-based phones, especially the new Droid, Apple might be looking for a new, innovative music service to pair exclusively with the iPhone. While the buyout does not allow Apple to acquire Lala's streaming licenses, it does allow them to acquire a team of engineers with several years experience with cloud-based music streaming, jump-starting the process toward a new service.
In late October, Google announced that it would partner with Lala and iLike to create a Google Search-based online music service. With Apple and Google butting heads of late, it would seem that Lala's involvement in the project is likely to be quickly phased out. Of course, this does raise an interesting question: Did Apple buy the ambling startup as a tactical attempt to prevent Google from taking a lead in the music distribution market? Did Apple rescue Lala just to watch it die? And, once Lala was dead, would all of the other Teletubbies demand to watch it die again? (That's the joke from the headline!)