“I’ve written about Melodeo’s products a couple of times, most recently in January, when I got a demo of a forthcoming update to Melodeo’s Nutsie app for Android phones. Nutsie (the name is an anagram of iTunes) runs on several mobile platforms, and gives users a way to get music from the iTunes library on their computer to a mobile device over the air… Basically, Melodeo was building an online music locker, like what MP3Tunes offers,” Rosoff reports. “It sounded like a great solution for Android’s weak spot in music, and I even speculated that Google might acquire Melodeo. But the updated Nutsie app hasn’t come out yet, and when I contacted a spokesman about two weeks ago, he told me that Melodeo had some big news coming up that was delaying its product plans. This was it.”
“So what’s HP going to do with Melodeo? My guess: it’s going to build a music streaming service for the WebOS mobile device platform, which HP gained in its acquisition of Palm earlier this year,” Rosoff reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Are they building a billion-dollar data center in North Carolina, too?
Hp now has owns web OS, A music service, and makes hardware products of all kinds. The are probably the only company that if they do this right might be able to offer some competitive products that mimic Apple’s offerings.
They have deep pockets and can stay around for the long haul as they have so many revenue streams, Enterprise, Printers, Computers etc. from which to draw on. I think they are wanting to to get into mobile because that is such a lucrative market.
What a waste of HP’s time & money
It’s a secret, but coming soon to a printer LCD screen near you is going to be a bright menu asking you to choose between the following printer options:
1. Surf the we while waiting for you print job to be done.
2. Listen to music while you wait for your print job to be done
3. Cancel print job, go back to your desk and try resending it again
Right after HP purchased Palm, they made a statement about not getting into the phone business. They made it sound like they were just buying Palm so they could use webOS in tablets. The purchase of a mobile music company seems to contradict that. Yes, I’m sure people play music on their iPads, but I expect most people like taking their music with them, in their pocket. This means mobile phones.
“Are they building a billion-dollar data center in North Carolina, too?”
They don’t need to. They won’t be as busy as Apple.
HP is trying too hard to be all things to all people. In the process I feel their overall quality has dropped considerably. I use to be a HP only printer person but with the problems I have encountered in the last couple of years with quality, I no longer buy them for my business or personal use. I have a dead LaserJet P3005dn (as do apparently many other folks based on on-line forums) that is proof of my point.
Yeah, they think they can glue together enough bits of function to make Apple.
The delusion is sad.
That will be $30 million right down the toilet. If I owned shares in HP I would not be happy. Money wasted on Palm and now this.
@ Amazin1,
“HP is trying too hard to be all things to all people.”
And, Apple isn’t? The next big thing may just be replacement ink cartridges done right. Apple is going after the low hanging fruit, no matter where it is to be found.
Looks like HP’s gonna do what Palm should have done instead of wasting time trying to hijack iTunes.
@MDN
You know how you have your iPhone Killer tag line that has all the iPhone wannabes?
You need to do the same for stories like this with the tag line Apple wannabes!
Microsoft (have a strikethrough line through it), Dell (strikethrough), Google (strikethrough), HP (strikethrough), NEXT… I’m sure MDN can think of some more companies emulating the Apple eco-system business plan!
@Big Al: “The next big thing may just be replacement ink cartridges done right.”
Didn’t Apple do that some 19 years ago? From Wikipedia: “The StyleWriter was Apple’s line of inkjet serial printers, targeted mainly towards consumers. They produced print quality that was better than the dot matrix ImageWriters, and were cheaper than the LaserWriters. All but a few models contained Canon print engines, while the last few were re-badged HP DeskJet printers.”?
Purchasing a company for $30M does not necessarily “vaults HP into [a] battle” for anything. HP history says that it won’t pay off, but who am I to stop them? Good luck, HP.
This is exactly the direction HP should be going. Everyones trying to compete with apple on hardware instead of user experience. Looks lime HP is moving in that direction
Melodeo?
Hmmm. Should go well with HPs customer service – ‘Rodeo’ (you soon fall off!)
HP is getting more an more LOL for every dya. They really think they are Apple too. I think they will have very limited success in all this and webOS.