Apple acquires Beats Electronics for $3b *

Paranoia and legal business agreements are very different. One is in our head and the other is a signed legal document between a employer and employees and I do understand how those who have never experienced singing one might not get it. And I'm sure you are correct that BEATS has not been such a secretive company. At least not as much as those creating new tech. I hope your friend keeps his job and gets a bigger pay day or profit sharing if and when Apple makes the purchase.

 

Found this interesting:

"Because it’s deeply conscious that pumps a lot of blood into the music industry. My source says iTunes execs started deeply considering streaming at least two years ago. They realized a sudden move for iTunes from downloads to streaming could lead to dark days for the record business, reducing musical inventory – and revenue – accordingly."

http://www.macrumors.com/2014/05/22/beats-acquisition-is-acquihire/

 

It does affect it if you're using lossless or WAV files on a mechanical hard drive iPod. (Sadly, I just had my first iPod Classic completely die today... but I got about 8 years out of it, and I have five more, so what the hell.)

They knew this going in. All the record labels have been alarmed at the streaming companies, so this was known going back to Pandora, Rhapsody, Last.FM, and Spotify, long before iTunes Radio. What I'm curious about is whether Apple is going to start a new record label, given that they're basically buying the services of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre.

I've been amazed that Apple has not yet bought a movie studio or a TV network, since with $150 billion cash in the bank, they could definitely afford one. (Or two.)

 

Best to keep these seperate. Look at the mistakes Sony made because they owned media content.

 

There is that... although right now, Sony Pictures makes a lot more money than Sony Electronics. What kills them is they can't own an American TV network, because they're a foreign company.

 

A TV network would make little sense - they actually don't generate that much content. A movie studio might make sense, but it's completely outside Apple's core focus and the one guy they had in the executive suite with movie studio experience - Jobs - is dead now.

I wonder though if they could partner with movie studios, financing certain projects the studios might not otherwise produce. I could see Amazon doing much the same. The studios aren't terribly efficient by Silicon Valley standards...

I could see Apple gobbling up a record label. They're so poorly managed already, Apple couldn't do much worse just via benign neglect of an enormous catalog. Given Apple's marketing abilities, they could probably milk the vast catalog of some existing label for a lot more money than any of the labels are currently making.

I'd bet Amazon could do the same.

 

Most of that cash is outside the USA and can not be used to buy US companies without paying taxes on it first, which is why Apple is keeping it abroad.

 

Oh, I suspect there are ways around that.

I would argue that headphones are outside Apple's core focus. They could spend that $3 billion in ten other areas that would make much more of a positive difference.

 

Well, Apple is one of the largest sellers of headphones in the world already - they're in the business pretty deep and have been for over a decade (since the iPod took off). Headphones are consumer electronic hardware, which you could argue is Apple's core focus. A movie studio is way outside of anything Apple produces at the moment.

 

I can remember a time 7 years ago when the richest man in the world said that Apple was insane for getting into cell phones, because that was way outside of anything they produced. Look at them now.

 

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Well, only it really wasn't. Apple produced a pocket touch-screen computer that happened to have a built-in cellular radio and could double as a phone (fairly poorly compared to many dedicated phones). That wasn't a word away from the laptops and iPods they already made, only substantially more advanced.

Ironically, Microsoft could have easily beat them to market - they had literally all the components in place already, but could never figure out how to assemble them successfully.

 

The problem was at the time Microsoft's mobile platform, Windows CE, sucked eggs. There is a reason why everybody called it WinCE.

 

Tell that to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, both of whom questioned the introduction of the iPhone (and iTunes and the iPad and the iMac and the iTunes Music Store and the iPad). They were wrong about the success of all of these.

But even in light of that, I think moving into headphones is goofy. If they want to buy something simply because it makes a lot of money, buy McDonald's and change the name to iHamburgers.

 

The rumors of the Apple-Beats deal are being overtaken by the rumors of the Apple-Beats deal being scuttled.

 

LA Times Today
http://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...s-music-beats-electronics-20140528-story.html

"Apple Inc. has confirmed that it has reached a deal to buy headphone maker Beats Electronics and digital music service Beats Music.

The Cupertino tech giant said Wednesday that it will acquire the two companies for a total of $3 billion.

That's less than the $3.2 billion Apple was said to be prepared to pay for Beats when talks leading up to the deal were reported earlier this month, but is still easily the biggest acquisition in the company's history."

 

And Iovine comes aboard the Apple board of directors (and gets replaced at Universal) as does Dr. Dre.

 

That's idiotic, dumbest thing I've ever heard. Any fool could see it should be "iBurgers"

Maybe THAT'S what Microsoft should do with all their cash…and rename themselves "McRosoft"

Perhaps I should legally change my name to "Mick Rosoft" and send in a job application

All right, more seriously, maybe Apple thinks they can insert some kind of technology into the headphones. Read your pulse and temperature from your inner ear or something.

 

You're absolutely right -- iBurgers is a much bigger name.

Here's the four guys who were part of the $3B deal today:



Jimmy Iovine (without his baseball cap for the first time in history), Tim Cook, Dr. Dre, and Apple iTunes guru Eddy Cue.

 

Apple is just another middle ged man right now they don't know what to do, they just buy stuff.

 

With (somewhat) declining crowds in 'Apple' stores, can a 'beats' flagship store be far away? I've heard of at least one successful phones only store so far.

The beats stuff won't look out of place in all that white light.

 

Beats announced a new set of headphones today, with better quality (less-bassy) sound.

 

Thanks for posting the photo. They are all delighted with the deal

 

No declining crowds in the Apple stores I've been in lately in San Francisco, Seattle Los Angeles and Chicago I use their wi fi when I'm passing by.

 

Give me $2 billion, and I'll wear those nasty-sounding headphones and smile!