Good Question. Apple is the anti-me. They are the epitome of corporate greed. Apple tries to convince people that their product will make them feel more elite and better than the competitors. Materialism isn't my thing. Im a practical person. Apple has cornered their market and are running out of good ideas. Perhaps they should start doing clothing.
$3 bill is nothing for these companies. Facebook bought Whatsapp for $19 billion and whatsapp doesn't actually make any money. Google bought Motorola for 12 billion and sold it off for 3 two years later. Dre and especially Iovine joining the company are probably the biggest deals. Iovine's link to the music industry I'd imagine will only help Apple's ties there. Along with the Beats brand and it's popularity this whole deals seems rather low risk/high reward imo.
theyre already behind the curve as samsung, jawbone, razor etc have already started on wearable tech. perhaps they shld invest in a gaming arm n fight take take two's GTA series
they are probably not buying this for the headphones..it has something to do with the music streaming deals..
This. Apple wants Iovine and his team. Cook admires what Beats did with Beats Music and would rather acquire that team and talent as well as the technical foundation than build from scratch. Here is Iovine on curated music: http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/5/9/music-and-curation The acquisition expands the music side of the company in terms of both streaming and negotiating with the content providers. It will be interesting to see what happens to the hardware as Apple's people start working the designs. Will the quality improve or remain the same? I would wager Apple will improve the quality. The company focuses on providing premium products for a premium price. Apple doesn't concern itself with being first to a market. They concern themselves with providing the best experience in a market. Samsung is rushing products out to market before they are really refined for primetime. Apple has just been working behind closed doors while other companies rush to beat Apple at whatever is the current scuttlebutt about Apple's plans. In this case, Cook thinks Beats Music, Iovine, and Dre are on to something unique from Spotify, other competitors, and even Apple.
Isn't that the same for almost every single upmarket/high class brand? People love buying Armani, Gucci, LV, Ferraris, for the elite status, even though in practical terms, there are far, far cheaper options that gives you the same quality of product. Apple just happens to be far more in the public eye because of their smartphones. In a materialistic world where your image does define you, having the latest iPhone feeds into your selfworth and people's perception of you.
Wasn't that the entire centerpiece of the Samsung Galaxy S marketing campaigns the last few years? It seems like that's pretty standard fare for cell phone marketing.
For anyone that hasn't read it this is a great article about how Dre and Jimmy basically took Beats from the Monster company that sold them over priced wires. Pretty brutal business tactics, but hey that's business. http://gizmodo.com/5981823/beat-by-dre-the-inside-story-of-how-monster-lost-the-world
It's a funny story if you ask me but mostly it's a story of someone bringing a knife to a RPG fight. The Monster folks were way out of their depth and Dre and Iodine smelled blood in the water. If you think about it, Beats were never about the headphones but about the Little 'b' logo on the side. Dre could have slap that on some tin cans and people would have at that **** up.
yup this. Amazing how one half of the population sees this BS for what it clearly is and the other half just says "#YOLO"
Step off your soap box playa'. People do things for wherever reason they want. Rich people buy shirts for $100 that cost $2 to make. Watches for $20K that probably cost 1/20th of that to make. I don't judge people for their taste in things since it's all about what things mean to you. I buy Jordans that cost $12 to make. You shave your balls why? Because we can. It's what make us individuals.
****ty headphones, yes I know they purchased this for the streaming music but Spotify pretty much rules all streaming services and I'm not changing and this also doesn't make Dre a billionaire. He will be an $800 millionaire doe.
I wax em, not shave, just to be clear. If you wanna drop $200 on headphones, thats fine with me, but my issue is when people claim these headphones are somehow the beeswax when in reality, it's just the B that makes them think that way.
Apple has built its recent success by focusing on product differentiation and focus on particular groups of consumers in its markets. The acquisition of Beats Audio aligns perfectly with those two competitive strategies and integrating the Beats Audio brand into Apple’s current consumer products can and will definitely add value. Not to mention the streaming service that comes along with it. I get it; trashing the cool and “hip” things that people are into is the taste of the hour. Some people like and live by Apple products - Others don’t, and that’s OK. And it’s a well known fact that Beats headphones aren’t the best on the market, though they’re not nearly as bad as some claim. But denying the merit of this relatively small acquisition (by Apple’s standards) along with its favorable risk/reward ratio is being obtuse at best.
At first I, too, thought this was a waste of money and that Apple overvalued the Beats brand by shelling out $3 billion for the company. Then I also thought this was the start of the end for Apple. But what I (and I think some others as well) forgot is that $3 billion is a drop in the proverbial bucket for Apple as they have almost $160 billion in cash. This is like buying a value meal for them. I think if it's solely for the streaming service/software then I think money would have been better spent on Spotify even at a higher asking price but with Beats they get a brand (besides Apple itself) that younger buyers (who matters probably just as much as the older crowd) wants/recognizes. As far as hardware, I don't think it means much for Apple in terms of utilizing Beats "technology" for their macbooks/iphones/etc. Apple and Cook got bored and thought this was a brand worth buying. How is this "corporate greed" any different from companies like Wal-Mart or Samsung? Apple's product portfolio has evolved over the past 20 years from iMacs, to macbooks, to ipods, to iphones and then to ipads. It's not like they were resting on their asses the past 20 years (though Cook's era is starting to look like that). I'm curious as to what kind of "practical person" you are.
I don't know if he's a billionaire or not (I'm 99.98% sure he isn't) but he definitely isn't the main player in Vitamin Water. He was like... the Napster guy was to the Facebook guy. He didn't create it and he wasn't the one calling the shots on its sale. Just a minority partner.
I read another article that states they will be buying Beats (an Ireland-based company) with their International money. So it's a tax play too and will cost a lot less than the $3b they're paying.
