Pixar and Walt Disney aren’t going to extend their five-picture deal. So does it make sense for Apple to buy Pixar?

Both are run by Steve Jobs and Apple, now up to its neck in online music, is beginning to look more and more like a content company as opposed to a pure hardware firm, says CNN’s Paul R. La Monica here.

“It’s an interesting idea,” said . “The basis of Pixar’s success is computer animation and Jobs is trying to get more into music and entertainment. It’s a little convoluted but stranger things have happened,” he quotes analysts Dennis McAlpine as saying.

“Just think of the cross-marketing opportunities,” says La Monica.

“Those surfer dude sea turtles from ‘Finding Nemo’ listening to the Beach Boys on their iPods. Toy Story’s Woody using Apple’s new GarageBand software to compose a love song for his girlfriend Bo Peep. And how about Sully from Monsters Inc editing How to Scare Kids videos with iMovie on his Power Mac G5?”

But, he thinks, the odds of an Apple and Pixar merger actually happening are remote.

“In an age when investors take corporate governance issues seriously, an Apple takeover of Pixar could be viewed as just a tad self-serving,” he says.

“Steve Jobs owns approximately 55 percent of Pixar’s shares, according to the company’s latest proxy statement, so he’d be basically paying himself if there’s a big premium in a deal.”

Remember all those rumors about Apple buying Universal Music last year? – he asks. “That never panned out. Apple went ahead and launched its iTunes music store instead and gained access to songs from all the major record labels.”

Um. Yeh.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2004 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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