“Apple, Inc. is laying off 200 employees related to its $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics LLC,” New York Shock Exchange writes for Seeking Alpha. “The job cuts will be in the areas of human resources, finance, and other job functions where the two companies have overlapping operations. ”
“With the announced layoffs, Apple CEO Tim Cook is sending a message to Apple employees, Beats and the market that he means business,” Shock Exchange writes. “With the announcement of the restructuring, any criticism about transaction execution risk or integrating the two corporate cultures – Cook now heads that off at the pass.”
“With Apple’s restructuring of Beats, Tim Cook sends a clear signal that there will be no missteps with the $3 billion acquisition, and he wants the transaction to be accretive to the bottom line,” Shock Exchange writes. “Cook may have also sent a subliminal to Pandora that momentum and market share are great, but profits are even better.”
Read more in the full article here.
With a name like NY Stock Exchange, how can we not take this seriously.
Shock exchange, i believe it says….
all the more serious to me !-)
IMO if this is an area of concern for Cook, he should be focused on Spotify and not Pandora. Spotify let’s you play WHATEVER you want to–not just procured guesswork of what you might like to here into a ‘station’. I’ve yet to have a station actually come close to being correct in anticipating what I want to hear.
Spotify is the true leader in this arena..
No it doesn’t. I tried in vain to get it to play a specific song the other day and it simply refused.
I personally think it’s crazy to rely on any streaming service to supply music you like long term. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve found a cool new (to me) album on Spotify, enjoyed it for a few weeks, and then have it suddenly disappear from the service entirely. Some record company exec decided they weren’t getting paid enough and yanked the rights. This is the case on the iTunes store as well; I’ll find some album I previously purchased on iTunes is not available for iTunes in the Cloud streaming because they no longer sell that album.
I will never, EVER stop buying and ripping/burning my music.
I enjoy listening to Pandora but I still buy music that I enjoy for the exact reason you described.
Spotify certainly allows the most control over what you want to hear on demand and the idea of specific plug-ins for harvesting music based on criteria is absolutely fantastic. Same with its fan-sourcing abilities. With Apple’s huge library of music, I think such a service would be unbeatable if Apple acquired it. I’d definitely go with Spotify for a streaming service. I think Apple bought Beats for many other reasons apart from pure streaming.
However, a streaming service such as Spotify may go against Apple’s main desire to SELL music which may always be Apple’s main goal. If you can listen to a selection you want at any time, then what’s the point of buying it? If it eventually get’s pulled from the service then that’s another story entirely because that would present a problem.
Subliminal?? Really? Apple has the enviable position of immediate critical mass when it does anything. I’m sure Beats – no matter what Apple decides to do with it (headphones/streaming) will be profitable. But a subliminal message to Pandora that “Apple is focused on profitability” is a stretch. Their starting with a difficult $3B hole to justify and #2, I don’t honest think Apple does things with messages to competitors in mind. Just my humble opinion.
I can’t imagine a conversation in the Apple executive suite where someone suggests laying off 200 Beats employees to make Pandora nervous.
In business profit is everything.
A business without profit can’t grow.
I don’t think Apple is going to deliberately try to put Pandora out of business. Apple is going to simply improve iTunes Radio in a way as to sell more music. That’s Apple’s business model and I believe they’ll try to stick with it. I’ve tried to use iTunes Radio but ran into that damn limit of number of artists allowed for selection. And there seems to be something wrong with their music selection algorithms. I had much higher hopes because I thought they’d be able to integrate the iTunes Library Smart Playlist functions into iTunes Radio where you’d be able to nearly precisely specify (artist, genre, decade, M/F, etc.) what you want to hear with some randomness added. I keep getting some odd crap music that doesn’t seem to fit my criteria at all.
As far as I’m concerned, iTunes Radio comes up woefully short of Pandora and even Songza and hopefully the Beats acquisition will produce some better results. I’ve really tried to fine-tune iTunes Radio but I gave up. With all that money Apple has at its disposal, I really thought they could come up with something better. I’d heard that the programmers for iTunes Radio didn’t know what the hell they were doing and I guess they didn’t refer to other streaming sites to learn what listeners like. I’m looking for a cross of Spotify and Pandora for the next iTunes Radio but I’ll happily continue using both those services if Apple can’t manage to do a good job with iTunes Radio.
It always annoys me to hear Wall Street always boasting about one company killing off another based on market share or profits. It’s absolutely revolting. There certainly has to be money enough on this planet for more than one company to survive without destroying all others. Anyway, this creep has no idea as to what Tim Cook is thinking. I’m sure Apple is more focused on improving its services to give a better user experience for its own needs rather than for the purpose of ruining another company. I’m hoping Apple can’t be that desperate.
“It always annoys me to hear Wall Street always boasting about one company killing off another based on market share or profits. It’s absolutely revolting”
although you have might have nice sentiments, think about it:
what if the company is lazy and doesn’t perform?
what if a company just wants profits and refuses to spend on R&D, or staff training, or even keep it’s premises clean? Some companies treat their customers like shit, not returning calls (because they want to save money on call service) etc. DO THEY DESERVE TO SURVIVE vs more hardworking, focused competitors? Some competitors of Apple like RIM had giant piles of cash but the owners used it to buy hockey teams instead of R&D, they too deserve to do well?
Look at the ‘protected’ (state owned businesses for example) in socialist societies, they produce garbage products like Trabant , Yugo cars….
If industries are protected they have NO INCENTIVE to improve products or services. People in those societies even need to queue up for hours for shoes etc.
What? All those messages contained in the notice that Apple is laying off 200 people from an acquired company whose positions are not needed because Apple already has sufficient staff in those areas?
Wow, I didn’t know there was an entire novel between the lines.
Must be a very slow news day.
This stuff happens everyday in business, it isn’t news.
Correct, but Apple’s name is in the article and that will draw page hits.