Steve Jobs eyes another maverick move

LOS ANGELES: Apple Computer Inc., which Jobs co-founded in 1976 in his parents" California home and now runs as chief executive officer, is in talks to acquire Universal Music Group for up to $6 billion, a source familiar with the situation said.

While the merging of a computer and music company may not make sense to some analysts, others who know of the 48-year-old Jobs" reputation as a maverick businessman say he has made a lot of money doing things others thought made no sense.

"He"s saying (to the music industry), "You let me into your fraternity, and let"s see what we can do together"," said Phil Leigh, vice president of brokerage Raymond James & Associates.

Leigh said Raymond James does not own stock in either Apple or Universal parent, Paris-based Vivendi Universal.

Since the late 1990s, when downloading digital music files to personal computers or burning (copying) them onto personal CDs started growing in popularity, the PC industry and music makers have been at odds over issues of copyright piracy.

Computer and consumer electronics makers want to forge ahead with the technology to sell more equipment, and Jobs has been vocal on the subject with Apple coining the marketing slogan, "rip, mix, burn," to help sell its iMac computers.

That group is at odds with music makers like Universal who have suffered falling CD sales and blame people using computers to illegally copy and distribute digital music files for free.

Global music sales tumbled 7.2 percent in 2002 to $32.2 billion and Universal, with acts like rapper Eminem and rocker Sheryl Crow, controls over 30 percent of the music market.

Dude, where"s your guitar?

Putting Apple and Universal under one roof would lend Jobs a powerful voice to push the industry ahead -- and he doesn"t even have to rap, sing or play guitar. "It helps him define the industry and move it forward," said one source at an online music distributor who asked to remain anonymous. "It makes sense."

After graduating high school, Jobs attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, but dropped out. He went to work for video game maker Atari, where he met Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

The two worked in what was then the relatively unknown area of personal computing with Wozniak supplying the technological know-how and Jobs, who prefers blue jeans and a black turtleneck to business suits, providing the marketing savvy.

In 1977, they unveiled the Apple II, and by 1980 had sold stock to the public making Wozniak and Jobs millionaires. Jobs was 25 years old, and the technology boom was underway around Apple"s home in Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco.

Sales of Microsoft Corp. Windows-based personal computers, however began to push ahead of Apple"s Macintosh units by the mid-1980s. By 1985, Jobs was forced out of his job.

While he returned to Apple over a decade later in 1996 to lead a remarkable rebound in its fortunes, Jobs, at age 31 embarked on another journey in 1986 -- into moviemaking. He formed Pixar Animation Studios Inc. to make computer generated movies, and in 1995 along with Oscar-winning director John Lasseter, Pixar and its partner Walt Disney Co., the studio had a mega-hit on its hands in "Toy Story."

Their films have been huge. "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2" raked in $358 and $486 million, respectively, at global box offices, and "Monsters, Inc." in 2001 grossed $530 million.

If Jobs, known as a tough negotiator, acquires Universal Music, he will add to his technology and movie holdings, a music company. In a way, he will mimic the world"s major media companies which control various content-producing divisions for movies, music, and television, as well as distribution in cable, satellite and on broadcast airwaves.

Only Jobs will control a hardware maker whose equipment plays content in people"s homes. Jobs has called the Macintosh the "digital hub of the digital lifestyle."