The Web Browser is 10 this Month
-- Weekend, April 12-13 --
[Update Sun. 9:15a EDT] Apple Not Serious About Buying Universal Music according to this Sunday NY Times article (free subscription required). Speculation that Apple will buy the U.S. music division of the French company Vivendi Universal has run rampant on the web and in print newspapers since Friday following a story in the LA Times. This speculation has even been blamed for Friday's steep drop in Apple's stock price. Here's a good Reuters article, perhaps written earlier, that is less definite than the NY Times article. Most of the quoted commentary is negative on the concept for Apple. Universal Music is about the same size as Apple in gross sales ($6 billion) making it a big pill to swallow. The music industry is slumping like the computer industry so the union would require some synergism between the two companies to move in the opposite direction, upward. The "experts" do not believe this is possible. If Apple owned a part of the music industry, being a competitor would make it more difficult for Apple to work with the other members.
Despite the negative comments, we think there must be more than meets the eye in this potential deal. If nothing more, the cost to Apple of a great share of the music Apple would make available through a rumored on line music service could be reduced. The idea of Apple making more money through music or music/video MP3 and MP4 formats rather than the usual music CD format, which is slumping, through a marriage of technology is not outlandish. Securing a music company to stabilize the cost of music is a good idea if the concept works. [Dana Baggett]
[Update Sat. 8:15a EDT] Silver Anniversary for the Speadsheet: VisiCalc, the first speadsheet program, was conceived by Dan Bricklin 25 years ago this spring according to a SiliconValley.com article. The spreadsheet application brought the personal computer into the business world. It was implemented in late 1979 on an Apple II. Its code was only 20 KB vs today's spreadsheet king, Microsoft Excel, at 21 MB. The article covers a symposium held in Mountain View, CA, featuring Bricklin and his partner/programmer Bob Frankston plus an early employee Mitch Kapor. Kapor left to found Lotus Development which produced the spreadsheet application 1-2-3 that sunk VisiCalc and later fell victim to Excel. [Dana Baggett]
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