June 24, 2010

By By Glenn Peoples

Hewlett Packard has purchased Melodeo for between $30 million and $35 million. Melodeo is the parent company of nuTsie, the music streaming service that allows users to listen to their iTunes collection over the Web and using mobile phones. nuTsie does not download those files but rather syncs a user?s iTunes library with the device. In other words, the service offers a cloud-based replica of a person?s iTunes folder.

As a result of the acquisition, the music streaming landscape just got more interesting. HP acquired Palm back in April. So now Palm has an in-house music service for its mobile device owners. That puts Palm and HP squarely in a similar strategy of its competitors. If the talk about Google is correct, the company is clearly thinking about creating a music download/streaming service to improve its Android mobile experience. And with Apple?s 2009 purchase of Lala, it has the potential to also have an in-house music app for its millions of iPhone and iPad users.

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