Music mogul Jimmy Iovine
and producer-rapper Dr. Dre co-founded Beats Electronics seven years ago
and launched the high-end headphones craze. Earlier this year, they launched Beats Music, a premium music-streaming service.However, Words are on that Apple is set to acquire this headphone maker and music company for a reported $3.2 billion.
This seem ironic in a way since Dre and Iovine came up with the idea for Beats after lamenting the decline in sound quality ushered in by Apple's own iPod and the MP3 era.
"For convenience and speed, everyone sacrificed sound," Iovine told USA TODAY three years ago.
"The emotion of the music is almost unrecognizable to what is recorded in the studio," said Iovine, who is the chairman of Interscope/Geffen/A&M records.
The two set out to market headphones that reproduce, Iovine said, "as close to the sound I hear in the studio as possible." But now they are selling back to the ones they once criticize.
The acquisition could be announced as early as next week, the Financial Times reported, based on people familiar with the negotiations. USA TODAY independently confirmed the talks through a source who is not authorized to speak publicly about it.
If consummated, Apple's purchase of Beats could represent the company's largest acquisition ever. Apple and Beats declined to comment on the report.
This would be Beats second go-round with a
phone maker. Electronics maker HTC bought half the company in 2011 for
$300 million, and Beats Audio was introduced to cellphones. Last year,
Beats bought back all of HTC's share of the company and got a reported
$500 million investment from The Carlyle Group.The report was met with mixed responses on Twitter Thursday night. Buzzfeed business editor Peter Lauria tweeted, "Ouch..9 months ago, HTC sold its stake in Beats for $265 million..now Apple is going to buy Beats for $3.2 billion."
GigaOm founder and True Ventures partner Om Malik tweeted: "Google spends $3.2 billion to buy the future & data. Apple buys bad headphones & a junk-service from music promoters. Worse use of corp $$$s."
So what role has these two investor played in sound engineering? Was their creation of Beats electronic just a move to uplift the general level of sound engineering of these high electronic companies? Or are they just out of innovative ideas or scared of the future competition? Would this sales make Dre a richer rapper, thus boosting his rapping ego?
Reference: usatoday.com
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