Napster Is Looking For a Buyer. They Should Never Have Turned Into a Download Store!
Napster has hinted that the company is up for sale again, saying in its response to a dissident shareholder group that the company is once again exploring possible strategic alternatives, and has retained UBS Investment Bank to assist in the process. The company hired UBS two years ago to explore a possible sale, but no deal emerged. Napster informed shareholders of the move in a letter that also said the company believes that three proposed dissident board candidates are “unqualified.”
The company said the dissident candidates “have offered no specific business plan, other than suggesting a vague review of Napster’s business,” and also “have no significant ownership in Napster and, in fact, have been frequent sellers of Napster stock.”
Napster instead urged shareholders to re-elect its current slate of independent directors.
I predicted something like this happening to Napster back in December of last year. Napster has a business model that was rapidly decreasing and they didn’t even look like changing it. The company has a great brand, but they are still just moving in the wrong direction. A download store was never going to be right for this brand, they should have done something ad supported and in the same market as Imeem, build a community around this great brand. I so wish I had control of this brand!
5 Comments
QTRAX will soon be to music lovers what napster was in 2001, napster days are done along with all other paid music services its now the age of free music and LEGAL
we shall see, Qtrax was around when napster was sued,they shut down voluntairly in order to legally offer free legal p2p ,its the same top management trying to do this for 6 years the major labels were dead set against this they now have site up and running with appx. 2 million songs universal ,emi, tons of indies, some sony and warner but those deals have not been announced yet portability should be seen soon along with more countries being able to download Its not quite the music service qtrax originally envisioned but the label’s thinking still dosent get it that of all music downloaded in the U.S. only 8% is done so legally ( itunes, napster, rhapsody combined) only account for 8% big market for qtrax to tap into. keep an eye on it this month just friday released a new beta 0.5
Hmmm almost a full year later and still no portability or major launch for that matter either. While I agree that the amount of legal downloading pales in comparison to the amount of illegal downloading, Qtrax isn’t going to win over those illegal downloaders by offering a service that both locks them in, in terms of both operating system and in terms of devices like mp3 players and cellphones. If all the highly publicized lawsuits over the last decade filed by the RIAA against illegal downloaders hasn’t curbed the amount of illegal downloading taking placeTrapp Lodge, how on earth can you possibly think Qtrax will be able to? The truthful answer is they won’t be able to, especially given the cumbersome restrictions imposed on these “free” songs.