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Early Friday, December 4th CNET reported that Apple was in advanced acquisition talks with Lala an online music streaming service. According to The Wall Street Journal, it seems that the negotiation have culminated in Apple's ownership of Lala.
Lala was the first and only free fully licensed service that provided Internet access to an existing music library such as iTunes. It introduced a licensed technology that instantly matched songs from consumers’ personal music libraries with the Web-based catalog on lala.com. The streaming service let users add songs to a Web collection for only 10 cents, and buy DRM-free MP3 downloads for an additional 79 cents.
Mac and PC users have long been divided on the issue of music ownership and rights management. PC users have lost their money and entire music libraries with the failures of several online music streaming/rental services such as URGE, a joint venture between MTV and Microsoft that shut down in August of 2007. Mac users have faced storage issues and spawned the creation of CD ripping services such as PodPacker, MetroRip and others to alleviate the time comsuming effort of ripping large CD collections. With the advent of Internet Radio and its support in iTunes, computer users have had an alternative, but Apple's iPod has only recently gained the ability to "tune into" radio airwaves or otherwise. It would seem that Apple is preparing to change the playing field again. When Apple purchased the rights to SoundJam and launched iTunes, it created an easy way to convert music CDs for use on a computer or mobile device and to manage a music library. The latter was something not done properly by any software at the time. It would seem that Apple is preparing to do the same thing again, this time on a massive level.
This move, alongside Apple's recent purchase of land in North Carolina that MacRumors speculates to be a server farm. Could be the final pieces needed to fall into place before the launch of the much anticpated "iPad" or Apple netbook computer. Netbooks have gained popularity and videos showcasing next generation netbooks are now making their rounds. Apple's products have never simply been a device that does something well, they always have a trump card that leaves the competition scrambling to catch up while Apple moves towards the next technology. It seems that Apple's aggresive move toward cloud computing will leave the competition in the dust.