FollowWhen Apple bought Beats Electronics, it was the biggest acquisition for the Cupertino giant. Beats cost Apple $3 billion. Apple bought Beats for several reasons. One would be because of the headphones department, whose product has a widely renowned stylish image. Another reason is represented by Beats more recent service, Beats Music. The music streaming service offers human curated playlists, a trendy feature in the world of online radios filled with automated playlists. Nevertheless, the acquisition means that Apple fires Beats personnel. We really hope that the laid off workers will find other jobs soon, because according to a study, unemployment raises mortality risks. Coming from Beats might be an advantage on the labormarket.
While Dr. Dre might be happy about the transaction, not all of Beats’ employees will share his joy. At the moment Beats has around 700 workers. An unidentified informer claims that around 200 employees will be laid off, according to Bloomberg. Because the discussions were private, the name of the informer could not be disclosed. The job cuts might start as of August 1.
“We’re excited to have the Beats team join Apple, and we have extended job offers to every Beats employee,” Tom Neumayr from Apple stated. “Because of some overlap in our operations, some offers are for a limited period and we’ll work hard during this time to find as many of these Beats employees as we can another permanent job within Apple.”
Probably the jobs to disappear will be in sectors overlapping in both companies. So human resources and finance might be the sectors to see layoffs. At the end of June, Apple had 41.300 employees.
What happens after Apple fires Beats personnel
Some people from Beats will join Apple directly. Luke Wood and Ian Rogers, as well as creative boss Trent Reznor will work with Apple soon. The headphones and speaker workers will transfer to Apple as well.
Apple plans to translate Beats Music to the iTunes platform, but 9to5mac says that according to sources, the transition will be difficult, because of the different architectural characteristics. As a consequence, Beats Music will suffer a redesigning process. So Apple fires Beats personnel, but most of them will work on adapting the platform to Apple services.
Apple recently bought another streaming app, Swell. The app acts similarly to music streaming radios, only that it selects news instead of music. Streaming services are highly popular and Apple wants to make sure it has as many avenues as possible for future development.
