Steinway Buys ArkivMusic

Steinway acquires ArkivMusic for $4.5 million.  

ArkivMusic is certainly the “little” store that could… coming fairly close to offering everything classical that’s buyable on CD. With opera DVDs galore and every classical CD in print (and many out of print through their on-demand ArkivCD program), they are the “Amazon killer” for the classical market. According to Steinway’s release, they will continue as a wholly owned subsidiary.

As a web producer I hope the cash brings improvements to their site search capability (why can’t I combine the various search parameters?). On the other hand, I hope they do nothing to compromise Arkiv’s ease of use compared to Amazon (littered as it is with business development opportunities).