23 January

Business Cases

News Story: Record Labels Contemplate Unrestricted Digital Music

One of the majors considering releasing music without DRM

Why? Digital sales in ’06 80% ahead of ’05 but growth rate is slower Had hoped that iTunes model would succeed European governments interested in requiring interoperability

Changes happening: EMI to offer streaming on Baidu.com (leading Chinese search

engine) Estimate that 90% of music in China is pirated

EMI and Sony experimented with unfettered music on Yahoo!

Business Cases

Simple model: Read about the company and discuss Typically pointed questions

We’re going to have more specific ones

Our questions

What was the unique business idea this company had?

What made it an opportunity instead of just an idea? What was the market characteristic? Did the company show “outside the box” thinking? Did the company retian a customer focus? Did they continue to innovate? How did they use technology in their business? How did they use technology in their marketing? Did they have any key partnerships?

This week

Look at Facebook in class Look at Google for Thursday Select partners and topics on Thursday