Disney-Pixar: Steve Jobs in Hollywood

As a lifelong animation nut, I consider Disney's $7.4 billion buyout of Pixar Animation Studios to be a big deal--and I'm mostly wondering about the cartoons that might result from it. But this is PC World, after all, so the big question hereabouts is whether the acquisition of Steve's Other Company by a major Hollywood player means anything for Apple or digital entertainment in general.

On paper, this deal has nothing to do with Apple. But it makes Steve Jobs into Disney's biggest shareholder, not to mention a board member--so it seems safe to say that Apple's CEO will hold considerable sway (what is sway, anyhow?) at the Mouse House. It may not be inevitable that Disney and Apple will strike content partnerships that go far beyond their current TV-show downloads for thee video iPod, but it's surely more likely now. (Not to mention less likely that Disney will do deals with Microsoft or other Apple rivals.)

Jobs controls the audio/video handheld that dominates the industry. He runs the largest entertainment download service. He has, in iTunes, one of the best and most popular pieces of software for consuming entertainment. And now he'll have a hand in content, possibly creating the closest thing to an end-to-end system in the new world of media. (Oh, he also makes pretty good computers.)

Everyone keeps predicting the iPod's eventual fall based in part on the notion that end-to-end solutions aren't long-term winners in technology. (A Mac is an end-to-end solution, but one that's had a hard time competing with a Microsoft operating system running on a Dell computer.)

In the world of entertainment, end-to-end solutions died when the movie studios were forced to divest themselves of their movie theater chains. But maybe digital entertainment is more like the world of console gaming--in which the console manufacturers create the hardware and software, control distribution, and in some cases have a hand in software development--only more so. If so, you'd want to be involved in hardware, software, services...and content.

Steve Jobs isn't one to spell out his strategy in public. It'll unfold when he's ready to let it unfold. And the Disney-Pixar deal makes so much sense on its own terms that no ulterior motive is necessary. But do you have any guesses as to whether it's in part about the iPod?