Apple reportedly laying off some Beats staff, transitioning Beats Music to iTunes servers

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Appleā€™s $3 billion acquisition of Beats Music, a music-streaming service, and Beats Electronics, a highly lucrative premium headphone business, is nearing its completion.

Monday, the European Commission okayed the deal, saying it won’t stifle competition in Europe.

Though still pending regulatory approval in the United States, Apple is expecting to complete the purchase by the end of September.

Analyzing the inner workings of the Cupertino firm in the wake of the Beats acquisition, a reputable publication has shed more light on the transition phase and behind-the-scenes moves…

In a nutshell, Apple seems to be stripping Beats piece by piece while re-organizing its technological solutions inside the company. This is fairly typical for any major acquisitions so we’re not surprised that the Beats buy would lead to letting go of non-creative and non-engineering Beats staff.

Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac reports that Apple executives recently flew to Los Angeles to offer Beats people a number of development and creative positions at Apple.

Beatsā€™ support,Ā finance and HRĀ departments are said to have already been largelyĀ dismantled, with some workers being laid off in the past few weeks, a fewĀ offered definite positions in Cupertino, and others being offered positions until the end of January 2015.

Apple is said to have this week set up a dedicated phone hotline for Beats employees to speak with Apple Human Resources staff about severance packages or transition plans.

And citing unspecified sourcesĀ briefed on the transition, Gurman is claiming that work has begun on movingĀ the Beats Music technology to the iTunes infrastructure

This is apparently no small feat given that Beats Music is incompatible with Appleā€™s existing servers, leading Gurman to speculateĀ that parts of Beats Music may need to beĀ re-architectedĀ in the near-future.

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Apple is thought to retain Beats’ Santa Monica offices and allow select Beats Music engineers to continue working out of Southern California, the report concludes.

Both Beats and Apple confirmed that co-foundersĀ Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will be offering their expertise working at Apple in some capacity for an unspecified period of time.

“As part of the acquisition, Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will join Apple,” reads Apple’s press release announcing the acquisition. In the meantime, Beats is being sued by Bose over an alleged patent infringement concerning multiple Bose noise-cancelling inventions.