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If You Can't Beat 'Em, Buy 'Em
Right on the heels of recent news that Disney is teaming up with Sprint to provide special nationwide family service, Sprint has also managed to silence a big critic by simply buying their company out. There's so much here I don't know where to start.
First -- isn't the age of big media conglomerates over? Dan Mitchell ran a great editorial the other day about this
Whether in victory or in defeat, opponents of big media often come to the same conclusion: the inexorable march of technological innovation will severely erode the power of giant media companies. "In the end," Wired News (wired.com) said in an editorial, "the business model in the entertainment industry is going to change, and these companies can either find a way to insert themselves into the new order, or risk finding themselves frozen out forever."
Dan was talking mostly about the file-sharing evolution, but the same goes for content providers in general. Why would I associate cell phones with Disney? Why would I want to associate cell service with Disney? I just don't get it.
Then there's Sprint, shutting up a legal challenge by buying the whole company. Sprint wanted to buy Nextel, and US Unwired got in the way -- suing Sprint for breach of contract. Well that's easy to fix -- just write a check. Presto bingo, badda boom, badda bing, no more legal problem.
I guess I'm not smart enough to understand either one of these business moves. If US had a good case against Sprint, couldn't their customers file class action suits against both companies now? And if it didn't, what kind of precedent is Sprint setting by settling the issue this way? Seems like the sharks will come to feed for sure now.
Time will tell, right?
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