PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 5 (UPI) -- U.S. computing firm Apple has agreed to buy a four-year-old streaming music provider, sources say.
Quoting an unnamed person with knowledge of the deal, The New York Times reported Saturday Apple has struck to deal to purchase Lala, of Palo Alto, Calif., a Web site that allows users to store their digital music purchases on its servers and then "stream" the songs over the Internet from any computer or handheld device.
The newspaper said the move indicates Apple is branching out from its music distribution model of requiring customers to download digital copies of songs onto computers and then "syncing" them into mobile devices such as iPods or iPhones.
Apple wouldn't comment on the report, but David Goldberg, head of SurveyMonkey and the former general manager of Yahoo Music, told the Times, "I am sure Apple is watching streaming music, the traction of Pandora, of course, and other streaming applications on the iPhone. There's a legitimate question here: Why should people have to download music?"
Citing an unnamed person "with knowledge of the deal," the Times said Lala executives approached Apple after concluding their prospects for turning a profit in the short term were not good.
