In an expensive yet daring move, when Walt Disney, the venerable gi-ant owning media properties such as theme parks, animation studios and ESPN, announced to acquire the upcoming and highly successful Pixar, promoted by Apple's Steve Jobs, it reaffirmed the arrival of Bob Iger, Disney's current boss and successor of the charismatic Michael Eisner. For Iger, who was until recently viewed on Wall Street as a weak successor of Eisner, it was a sort of coup although a costly one as his critics would love to term the deal as. The $7.4 bn deal merges two opposites in the animation world. While one is a historic leader in the art form, the other is a high-tech trailblazer, that former employees say, has kept an intensely "family" feeling while creating a string of hugely popular hits like "Toy Story" and "The Incredibles," comments CNET, a US-based online media firm. Another plus for the merger is the fact that the two firms have had a long association: All the six movies made by Pixar so far have been produced and distributed by Disney under an agreement that is scheduled to end with the next film, Car. Jobs, who holds a 50.6% stake in Pixar, is set to join the Disney board once the deal is approved by the shareholders and regulators.
However, the "Jobs" factor has not stopped skeptics from drawing analogy with the now beleaguered old and new media marriage of Time Warner and AOL and warning about the potential pitfalls of such combinations. And added to this is the concern about the possible culture clash; it won't be easy to merge Pixar's more collegial environment with that of a big corporate environment studded with bureaucratic layers that hinder creativity. Nonetheless, for Disney, whose mainstay is still theme parks and animation movies, the deal would not have come at a better time as its animation business has struggled to produce any hit in the last 7 years since the hugely successful Tarzan that was released in 1999. s attribute this as the single biggest reason for Disney to buy Pixar, which has several mega hits to its credit and has never failed even once. However, the big question is: Can Jobs breathe the kind of creativity that made Pixar a big success in Animation industry, into Disney? Nevertheless, the deal has been backed by a majority of s. Merrill Lynch, global investment bank, backed the deal terming it as a "near-perfect strategic fit". "It is critical that media companies gain a greater understanding of technology and the impact it may have on their businesses," commented Kathy Styponia, with Prudential Securities, in the Financial Times.
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