WSJ writes about how Jobs is the one person who could bring about the much-touted convergence between the worlds of computing and entertainment.
Mr. Jobs is today increasingly fashioning himself as a digital-entertainment impresario. Over the past two years, he has turned Apple into a producer of entertainment technology for digital photos, movies and music, culminating in next week’s unveiling of the online-music service.
Mr. Jobs hopes to create a new model for online music, a business that so far has only been able to draw large numbers of customers seeking free tunes on Napster and other renegade file-swapping services. Napster grew quickly and peaked with about 60 million users but shut down in 2001 after losing a legal battle with the recording industry.
According to people who have met with Mr. Jobs, the new service is integrated with Apple’s iTunes software. Only Apple customers can use it, but that may change. The service requires a mouse click to buy songs and additional simple steps to move them to a CD or an iPod. Apple will charge 99 cents per song and sell albums for around $10, they say. Users will get to keep the songs permanently.
Jobs also owns Pixar, which is releasing “Finding Nemo”, its latest animation film, soon.
Steve Jobs
