C|NET: "Betting It All On Napster"

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/Betting+it+all+on+Napster/2008-1027_3-5331890.html?tag=nefd.lede' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/Betting+it+all+on+Napster/2008-1027_3-5331890.html?tag=nefd.lede</a><br /><br /></div><i>"By any measure, Napster Chief Executive Chris Gorog is one of the world's biggest believers in digital music. Eighteen months ago, his company, Roxio, was a successful, if unspectacular, player in the CD-burning software market. Then, in a rapid-fire corporate transformation, he purchased the Napster brand name at a bankruptcy auction, bought the record-label-backed Pressplay subscription service and relaunched the Napster brand as an iTunes song store rival and online music subscription service. A few weeks ago, he took the final step, selling off the old Roxio business and changing the company's name to Napster altogether."</i><br /><br />Check out this C|Net interview with Chris Gorog where he gives some background to and basically justifies his decisions regarding Napster. He also talks about his competitors, sales, and the future of the company. Definitely makes for interesting reading since I was quite surprised by both the decision to sell Roxio as well as changing the name of the company.

[Felix Torres]

Simple math:
1 million subscribers paying $15 a month at a 40% profit margin, works out to 78 million profit a year.
I'd say that's ample reason to change the company's name. :twisted:

As for the customer side of the equation:
a 20 Gb player can hold about 5000 songs, which it would take 27 years to buy at the rate of $15 a month. And that is 5000 songs at any time, not 5000 songs total; you can rotate music through the player on a daily basis if you want to. So a cheapie 1Gb player with a subscription can provide a lot more music value than an expensive jukebox without a subscription.

I'd say the gentleman is doing well by his stockholders *and* his customers.