AAPL has no interest in Dre. His partner Iovine is the key to the acquisition. Iovine has innovative inroads in the digital music subscription business. Dre just got lucky, and really brings nothing to the table but name recognition.
Dre may have gotten lucky to get into the game, but you can’t stay in the game unless you have the props to do so.
Thanks! No doubt true. Dr Dre name recognition-street cred is the key to marketing beats to blacks and urban whites but Iovine is the brains behind the operation. BTW I know he was a very well known rock producer (in a previous incarnation)
Now I know what makes Beat tick and why Apple really bought Jimmy Iovine
BTW I type just “Jimmy I” into google and the first auto-complete is Jimmy Iovine
Correct!
http://nypost.com/2014/05/10/apple-beats-deal-all-about-red-hot-music-exec-iovine/
Apple’s expected deal to buy Beats Electronics for $3.2 billion is really about one man — Jimmy Iovine.
The tech titan was so anxious to snag the 61-year-old music industry veteran that it made one of its largest acquisitions ever in order to do it, sources tell The Post.
In the business, it’s called acqui-hiring — the acquiring of a company just to hire its key human assets.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, hopes Iovine, the head of Universal Music Group’s Interscope, Geffen and A&M labels, wants to blast the Cupertino, Calif., company into a new era in the music subscription streaming business.
Iovine helped the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs create the multibillion dollar iTunes download business — now 11 years old.
That model has served Apple well — earning it boatloads of profits — but downloads are now in decline and a new idea is needed.
Iovine is being drafted to drive Apple into the $1 billion streaming music business, which globally grew 51 percent in 2013, according to the IFPI.
Global download revenue fell 2.1 percent.
“The electronics are a drag-along,” said one music source. “They want Jimmy and they wanted streaming.”