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            • January 22, 2006

              Disney Buyout of Pixar Confirmed; Jobs = Largest Disney Shareholder

            • Boing Boing: Disney swaps stock for Pixar; Jobs is largest Disney stockholder

              Disney swaps stock for Pixar; Jobs is largest Disney stockholder Britain's Torygraph newspaper is reporting that Disney has bought Pixar in an all-stock deal. Pixar had run out its deal to deliver movies for Disney distribution and was set to strike out on its own; in retaliation, Disney shut down it traditional animation division and replaced it with a CGI division that was every bit as lacklustre as the traditional animation division. Now it's gone ahead and bought Pixar from Steve Jobs, leaving him the single largest stockholder in Disney (!).
              The all-share deal will make Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, around $3.5bn and the single largest shareholder in Disney. Jobs created Pixar in 1986 when he paid $10m for the computer animations division of Lucasfilm, owned by Stars Wars creator George Lucas.

              I'm attempting to overcome the paralyzing effect the shock of this news has placed upon any attempt at brain activity (no comments from the peanut gallery! ;) and have discovered there are too many unanswered questions to try and think about in one sitting. Questions such as:

              * What kind of effect could this have on a future that as time has moved forward seems more and more like a Yahoo!/Microsoft DRM stranglehold on the future, and, with this announcement, instead looks a little more level in terms of the playing field?

              * How much of an effect will this have on other studios being unwilling to sign exclusive deals with Yahoo! in terms of internet distribution?

              * Will Microsoft's WMA and WMV media file formats find themselves on less peoples media devices because of this agreement?

              * How much of this brought about the recent announcement that Microsoft would no longer be providing and supporting a version of Windows Media player for the Macintosh platform? [NOTE: For those of you suggesting that the recent announcement of a five-year agreement between Apple and Microsoft to provide a version of Office for Macintosh null-and-voids this question, keep in mind... Different Business Units = Different Relationships]

              * and more...

              Seems like an eXplorations podcast in the making :)

            • Posted by m.david : January 22, 2006 04:56 PM GMT

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