A report from the Business Insider today claims that Google was recently very close to acquiring Spotify or Rhapsody, but the deal came apart thanks to some differing opinions inside the search giant. According to the tipster, the deal was as good as done, but there were three different groups in the company that were fighting over control of the service. We’d bet dollars to robots that one of those groups was the Android division. As a result, the deal was abandoned.
This is not an uncommon situation in Google, sources say. Big decisions are often made by committee. The belief is that Google will be able to respond more quickly to changing market conditions with more voices at the table. But it can also cause pandemonium, and abandoned deals.
Instead of purchasing a streaming service, and handling with all the licensing deals it would include, Google is reportedly working on a digital locker service. Parts of this system seem to have been demoed at Google I/O in May. Do you think passing on Spotify was a missed opportunity?
