Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats Music, a music-streaming service, and Beats Electronics, a highly lucrative premium headphone business, is nearing its completion.
Monday, the European Commission okayed the deal, saying it won’t stifle competition in Europe.
Though still pending regulatory approval in the United States, Apple is expecting to complete the purchase by the end of September.
Analyzing the inner workings of the Cupertino firm in the wake of the Beats acquisition, a reputable publication has shed more light on the transition phase and behind-the-scenes moves…
In a nutshell, Apple seems to be stripping Beats piece by piece while re-organizing its technological solutions inside the company. This is fairly typical for any major acquisitions so we’re not surprised that the Beats buy would lead to letting go of non-creative and non-engineering Beats staff.
Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac reports that Apple executives recently flew to Los Angeles to offer Beats people a number of development and creative positions at Apple.
Beats’ support, finance and HR departments are said to have already been largely dismantled, with some workers being laid off in the past few weeks, a few offered definite positions in Cupertino, and others being offered positions until the end of January 2015.
Apple is said to have this week set up a dedicated phone hotline for Beats employees to speak with Apple Human Resources staff about severance packages or transition plans.
And citing unspecified sources briefed on the transition, Gurman is claiming that work has begun on moving the Beats Music technology to the iTunes infrastructure
This is apparently no small feat given that Beats Music is incompatible with Apple’s existing servers, leading Gurman to speculate that parts of Beats Music may need to be re-architected in the near-future.
Apple is thought to retain Beats’ Santa Monica offices and allow select Beats Music engineers to continue working out of Southern California, the report concludes.
Both Beats and Apple confirmed that co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will be offering their expertise working at Apple in some capacity for an unspecified period of time.
“As part of the acquisition, Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will join Apple,” reads Apple’s press release announcing the acquisition. In the meantime, Beats is being sued by Bose over an alleged patent infringement concerning multiple Bose noise-cancelling inventions.