Apple stock set to soar on download movies?
It’s not really for this site to jump in on rumour or news before it breaks, but what may be happening over the next few weeks, months or so could truly be a momentous development – with the computer turning from calculator to true media device.
The author once sat through a presentation by no less than Mr John Scully, former CEO of Apple Computer (that’s him in the middle of the picture). At one point Mr Scully pulled up a slide, that became instantly famous at the time – and was also claimed by many others later to have invented it and the concept. This was the first major outing of the slide, and at the time it seemed almost like science fiction, something for another era – but Mr Scully, we’ll attribute it to you. So what was this slide – it was of course the famous ‘Convergence of Technologies’ slide. Yes it was about internet (or broadband network as it was then known), computer, cell phone (mobile phone to us Europeans) and media (of course it was called multimedia in those days) converging into a single platform or device.
Around the same time a young genius at the MIT media lab by the name of Nicholas Negroponte was also beginning to predict that Apple would one day be a broadcast giant. Of course a few years later Apple slipped into the kind of coma that made SGI look healthy – it took six or more painful years to come out of the coma, and in the end all the predictions were forgotten.
So with the rumours of an impending launch a true video iPod (not the puny stamp sized thing we have now) and the imminent launch of a new full-length online film store (according to rumours of course!). We salute the man who was able to deliver on Mr Scully’s dreams, none other than the man he originally forced out of the company … of course we mean Mr Jobs.
We’ll come back to the topic later when the launch has happened and the world has woken up to what this may mean for Apple. But our bet is that Apple’s stock is set to soar over the next few weeks before the announcement and after that it will continue skyward for some time.
How will Microsoft react? Who cares, it’s still in the dust on audio MP3 players, this announcement when it’s made will allow Apple to fulfil Mr Scully’s original destiny, though we’re sure he won’t be invited to the party.
Sources
Apple Offering Full Length Movie on iTune Macrumors
With video iPod debut near, time is running out for Apple to strike big movie content deals Think Secret
Apple to Offer Downloads of Entire Movies Gizmodo
Apple and Disney herald new media era Financial Times