Will Pixar Move In With the Mouse?

He eventually returned to Apple and introduced the stylish iMac in the late 1990s, riding its popularity back into the limelight as other ventures also began to catch on. Pixar, which he created and ran separately from Apple, has turned out one smash hit after another. Jobs's launch of the iPod stirred a sensation, drawing millions of consumers to Apple's iTunes Web site to download music and video. Nielsen-NetRatings reported yesterday that iTunes traffic soared 241 percent in December 2005 compared with the previous December, to 20.7 million unique visitors, or almost 14 percent of the active Internet population.

Jobs's comeback has now attracted a potential suitor in Disney. Iger has shown a willingness to embrace new media and the latest technologies at the company that owns the ABC television network, ESPN and theme parks. Last year, he struck a deal to allow episodes of ABC's "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" to be downloaded to iPods from iTunes.

Iger's challenge in bringing Pixar under the Disney wing would be to ensure creative freedom for Pixar's talent, analysts said.

"The corporate cultures are extremely different," Marla Backer, media and entertainment analyst at Research Associates-Soleil Securities, said in a report yesterday. "Pixar's is creative, campus-like, versus more bureaucratic Disney. . . . Despite potential promises of independence, there are always subtle changes when one company acquires another, which could dilute Pixar's creativeness."

Still, Jobs's influence on Disney could be profound. A deal could leave him as Disney's largest individual shareholder and land him a seat on the board of directors, according to the source familiar with the talks. Placing Pixar in the hands of a giant parent would give the animation studio a solid distribution network and deep pockets to offset potential stumbles. In the increasingly competitive entertainment industry, independent studios are finding security in mergers with larger companies. In December, the studio operated by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks SKG Inc., was gobbled up by Paramount Pictures.

As a medium-size studio, Pixar gets squeezed in several ways, Saffo said.

"They are nipped on the lower end because it's always getting easier for small groups of talented people to make movies on their own," he said. "Meanwhile, they are squeezed on the higher end because they don't have their own distribution channels."

Tim Bajarin, president of technology research firm Creative Strategies Inc., said he is more enthusiastic about Pixar scoring a solid distribution deal with Disney than he would be about the studio becoming part of Disney.

A prominent role for Jobs on the Disney board could adversely affect Apple, Bajarin said. The strong position of Apple as a seller of digital content on the Web is founded partly on its position as a neutral dealer in the market, he said.

"If Jobs is only a shareholder in Disney, I think the perspective of neutrality could be managed, but if he became a member of the board, that is where I think it gets dicey," Bajarin said.

For Jobs, however, a prominent role at Disney could satisfy some of his ambitions, analysts said. Adam C. Engst, publisher of influential Mac news site TidBits, said he could understand how access to Disney, one of the top brands on the globe, would appeal to Jobs.

"Jobs is out to change the world -- it's not about money for him," Engst said. "The computer is not necessarily the means to change the world anymore . . . popular culture is how you change the world."

Staff writer Frank Ahrens contributed to this report.