Napster swallows parent Roxio

Napster's owner Roxio is to sell its consumer software division for $80m in order to focus wholly on its digital music business.

The company plans to officially change its name to Napster, taking the brand of the one time file-swapping revolutionary that it purchased nearly two years ago. For the last nine months it has operated Napster as a paid digital music download and subscription service, competing in part with Apple Computer's iTunes.

The decision marks a dramatic and relatively rapid change in the company's identity and strategy. Once a leading company aimed at helping consumers burn CDs, it has seen that business slowly decline as other software programs such as iTunes have added their own automatic disc-burning capacity.

The digital music business is expected to grow substantially, however. Although far behind iTunes in terms of revenue, the Napster division is now making about $7.9m per quarter, and is on track to reach $30m to $40m for its fiscal year.

Napster CEO Chris Gorog said: "With the news today, we are on a path to become a very well-funded pure play in one of the hottest sectors in the consumer technology market."

John Borland writes for News.com