Apple, Music, and Cloud Computing

Today we talked about how Apple was able to modify existing practices into more value-added alternatives for music buyers. Last December, Apple acquired a small start-up, Lala, for $80 million. Although the size of the deal is fairly small for Apple, the acquisition has generated a lot of discussion as some suspect that Lala's model might be an early indication of how Apple views the role of cloud computing in the next phase of the music industry.

For more on the deal and some background information on Lala (which is a pretty great site, by the way):

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/technology/companies/05apple.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/technology/internet/16tune.html