Apple Buys Beats Music & Electronics for $3 Billion

ന്യൂയോര്‍ക്ക്: ബീറ്റ്സ് മ്യൂസിക് കമ്പനിയെയും ബീറ്റ്സ് ഇലകേ്ട്രാണിക്സ് കമ്പനിയെയും ടെക്നോളജി ഭീമന്‍മാരായ ആപ്പിള്‍ മൂന്ന് ബില്യണ്‍ ഡോളറിന് സ്വന്തമാക്കി. കരാര്‍ പ്രകാരം ബീറ്റ്സിന്‍െറ സ്ഥാപകരായ ജിമ്മി ഇയോവിനും ഡോ. ഡ്രിയും ആപ്പിള്‍ കമ്പനിയില്‍ ചേരും. ഇതോടെ ആപ്പിള്‍ സംഗീത വ്യവസായത്തിലും സജീവമാവുകയാണ്.

2008ല്‍ സ്ഥാപിക്കപ്പെട്ട ബീറ്റ്സ് ഹെഡ്ഫോണ്‍, ഇയര്‍ഫോണ്‍, സ്പീക്കര്‍ എന്നിവയുടെ നിര്‍മാതാക്കളാണ്. ബീറ്റ്സിനെ വാങ്ങിയതോടെ ആപ്പിള്‍ അവരുടെ ചരിത്രത്തിലെ ഏറ്റവും വലിയ ഏറ്റെടുക്കലാണ് നടത്തിയിരിക്കുന്നത്. ഇനി മുതല്‍ ബീറ്റ്സ് ഉല്‍പന്നങ്ങള്‍ ആപ്പിളിന്‍െറ ഓണ്‍ലൈന്‍, റീടെയ്ല്‍ സ്റ്റോറുകളില്‍ കൂടുതല്‍ രാജ്യങ്ങളില്‍ ലഭ്യമാവും.

The Apple/Beats Electronics deal is now official, and Apple says it will spend up to $3 billion to buy the headphone maker and streaming music company.

Why?

Because Apple likes the businesses Beats has already built, and wants to make new stuff with the help of its employees, says CEO Tim Cook. “We could build about anything that you could dream of. But that’s not the question,” he said in an interview with Re/code. “The thing that Beats provides us is a head start, and it provides us with incredible people, kindred spirits.”

Apple says it will keep the Beats hardware brand intact, as well as the Beats Music streaming service. It also says Beats Electronics co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will join the company as full-time employees.

Apple says the deal will close by the end of its fiscal year, which means by the end of September. It says the deal will be accretive in its next fiscal year. But Cook says the economics of the deal are secondary to the potential it generates for Apple’s roadmap: “The instant that this deal is approved, we can begin working on the future together. And I believe that that future is better than anything either company could build on its own.”

This is a deal that has confused most people outside of Apple’s Cupertino headquarters, because it is very un-Apple-like. While multi-billion dollar deals are now common for the likes of Google and Facebook, Apple has never made an acquisition of this size.

And when it has bought other companies, Apple has folded its purchases into Apple. For now, that’s not the case here.

The deal also means that Apple will operate a subscription music service, which is a business former CEO Steve Jobs had never been interested in. But music download sales, which had helped fuel Apple’s astonishing comeback a decade ago, have now stalled. And some music buyers, at least, seem interested in paying a monthly fee to rent as much music as they want.