One of my favorite serial entrepreneurs just sold his most recent start-up, streaming music site, LaLa.com to Apple Inc.
Lala.com is veteran technology entrepreneur Bill Nguyen’s most recent startup. Apple acquired it over the weekend but did not announce how much it paid for the site or what it would do with the companies technology, which analysts predict will be folded into iTunes, predicting Apple would enhance Lala.Com’s’s technology by improving its abilities to support higher streaming bit rates, which would provide a consistent user experience across the iTunes’ brand.
Lala.com was part of Bain Investments (and other private investment firm’s) portfolio.
Lala.com, which charges only $(US).10 per tune, allows its users to listen to an entire file before it is purchased. The company is Nguyen’s third successful start-up. His previous company was a unified messaging service called OneBox, which was acquired by Open Wave Inc. in October of 2000 for more than $500 million.
Although Apple has declined to comment on how much it paid for Lala.com and how it intends to use with the technology, bloggers who cover Apple and iTunes related news speculate Lala.com’s music preview abilities, its other technologies and its relationships with European record labels as well as European music producers could have been important considerations in the acquisition.—Jim Forbes December 07, 2009.
Comments