Aubrey Johnson Describes Why Apple Acquired Lala
He called in a few favors and got a meeting with the leadership at Apple. He explained that he had offers from the largest mobile OS competitors and that they wanted to acquire his music startup. Cue knew if Google obtained Lala the ownership of the service coupled with search dominance could be disruptive to their stronghold. Bill was notorious at getting great deals with the music elite, usually through Lala’s investor, Warner Brothers Music.
At the time, everyone on the outside — including myself — thought the Lala acquisition was part of a master plan for a streaming music service …
It’s funny that, in reality, the reasoning was very bland and monotonous; a defensive move to protect the iTunes ecosystem.