Apple Widens Music Strategy, Buys Startup Lala

Apple has bought the online music service Lala to broaden its reach in the digital music business. Lala relies on so-called cloud computing: It allows users to buy songs for 10 cents and listen to them on the web, but they're not downloaded to the person's hard drive or devices like iPods. More importantly, Lala is developing an iPhone app to make it even easier to get music on the go, notes the Wall Street Journal.

“There’s a big question in the industry about what will be the dominant way people will obtain music, whether it’s stored in the cloud or whether it will be on a hard drive,” one industry expert tells Bloomberg. “Apple is wise to cover its bases because it’s only in the download business.” (More Apple stories.)