“A well-placed source has confirmed rumors that Apple’s acquisition of Beats ‘is happening’ but was close to falling apart multiple times,” John Biggs reports for TechCrunch. “The source said with ‘70% certainty’ that Apple’s planned multi-billion acquisition of headphone maker Beats will go through. But Apple isn’t buying Beats for the technology, they’re buying the talent.”
“‘They want Jimmy and they want Dre,’ said the source. ‘He’s got fashion and culture completely locked up,’ Biggs reports. “While reviews of Beats hardware have been mixed, the company is valuable for the ‘record-label-in-a-box’ the Iovine and Dre relationship affords.”
“Iovine is known as a pit bull in the realm of media negotiations and this move will give Apple youth cachet thanks to the brand and business chops with the Iovine/Dre mix,” Biggs reports. “Iovine will be most valuable in negotiations with record labels in iTunes acquisitions. The move, it seems, is far more than just a hardware acquisition.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote 10 days ago:
It’s very likely that this Beats deal is simply that Jimmy Iovine is like Steve Jobs in one way, at least, in that he has the ability to sell ice to Eskimos, and Cook realizes that Eddy Cue without Steve Jobs is failing to seal the types of deals that Apple needs sealed.
iTunes Radio isn’t as good as it should be (plus it’s unnecessarily hidden – within iTunes on the desktop, especially), a subscription option would certainly be welcome, and the work for Apple’s next-gen TV product is pretty much done, according to our sources, but lacks the necessary content deals for launch. As senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, Cue is responsible for these things. Perhaps Cook’s intention is that those types of initiatives will now fall to Iovine to make happen correctly and promptly.
We’re not going to say that we expect Cue to retire sooner than later, but we wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he did, especially if this Beats deal gets consummated. – MacDailyNews, May 12, 2014
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