Since word got out last Thursday that Apple is in the final stages of purchasing Beats Electronics, it seems like everyone and their dog has written an op-ed on why Tim Cook and company would want to spend $3 billion on the headphone-maker.
While I normally love playing armchair analyst on topics like this, I've decided this time not to add to the noise. Instead, I've rounded up a handful of some of the better theories I've seen around the web on why an Apple-Beats deal makes any sense...
Following up news this afternoon that Apple is in serious talks to acquire Beats, the New York Post is reporting that co-founder Jimmy Iovine may soon be joining the company. The Post says Iovine would serve as a 'special adviser,' and would report to Tim Cook on 'creative matters.'
Jimmy Iovine is a record and movie producer, as well as a very successful entrepreneur. He co-founded Interscope Records in the early 90's, which later became part of the Universal Music Group, and then Beats in 2006, which again is being rumored to soon be bought out by Apple...
Apple has acquired LuxVue Technology, a company that makes low-power displays for mobile electronics, according to TechCrunch. Citing sources close to the transaction, the site reports that the iPad-maker has added LuxVue to its hardware innovations team.
Little is known about the deal, and even less is known about the company. Other than its big $43 million in funding, LuxVue has managed to fly under the radar. Patents reveal, however, that it specializes in micro-LED tech that could be used in future iOS devices...
Following the news that Sprint is considering buying T-Mobile comes word of another major acquisition. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that AT&T has approached DirecTV to begin possible buyout talks. The deal, the outlet says, could be worth over $40 billion in cash, stock and other assets.
Between DirecTV's satellite business and AT&T's U-verse arm, the move would result in a combined 26 million TV subscribers—which would be second only to the hypothetical Comcast/TWC combination, should that deal go through. So essentially, the two companies would hold most of the market...
According to a new report from Bloomberg, Sprint is preparing to acquire T-Mobile this summer. It's a rumor we've heard before, but the outlet says that the carrier has met with a number of banks, and plans to make a serious bid as early as June.
SoftBank and Deutsche Telekom, which own majority stakes in Sprint and T-Mobile respectively, are said to be in 'active discussions' over the buyout and possible CEO prospects. And unsurprisingly, T-Mobile's John Legere is the leading candidate...
Following the debut of its new Carousel photo and video management app last week, Dropbox announced today that it has acquired Loom, a cloud-based service for storing your photos. The move should surprise no one, as both companies have very similar goals, but it will affect end users.
Starting today, Loom is no longer accepting new users, and the service will officially shut down on May 16. Current users have until then to act if they wish to save any of their photos/videos by either exporting them to Dropbox, with no interruption in service, or downloading them via a zip file...
Just a day after Microsoft unveiled its digital assistant 'Cortana' to rave reviews, news has surfaced that Apple has been making moves to bring its own assistant up to speed. TechCrunch is reporting this morning that the Cupertino company has purchased speech recognition firm Novauris, and the group is now working on the Siri team.
Novauris is highly-regarded in the world of speech recognition. Founded in March 2002 by well-known speech researchers and ex Dragon Systems engineers, the firm's technology is used in a variety of products by companies like Verizon Wireless, Panasonic, Alpine and BMW, and can be operated in both the embedded and server space...
For the second time in the past year, Vimeo has acquired an iOS app-maker. Following its purchase of Echograph, an app for creating GIFs, in early 2013, the video site has bought Cameo, an iPhone application for making short, high quality movies.
If you've never heard of Cameo before, that's probably because it just launched in October of last year. But it's been turning heads during its 6 months in the App Store—we named it one of our apps of the week, and Apple gave it a 'Best of 2013' award...
Last summer, AT&T announced that it had reached an acquisition deal with Leap Wireless. The company said that it would be buying out the provider, which owns and operates the popular prepaid carrier Cricket, for $15 per share—equal to $1.3 billion. All it needed was approval from the FCC.
And it just got it. Yesterday the Federal Communications Commission gave AT&T's acquisition proposal a thumbs up, ruling that "the public interest benefits of the proposed transaction outweigh the likelihood of significant public interest harms." So what does this mean for everybody involved?
Apple is looking to boost its Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) team by hiring acquisition integration analysts, giving us a vague indication that a more diligent strategy to snapping up other companies could be in the cards for the Cupertino firm.
The new job position was posted earlier today on Apple’s job listings website and reported on by Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac. A listing for Acquisition Integration Analyst reveals that Apple is looking for an M&A expert to assist in its acquisitions, by working with the company's HR, Legal, IS&T, Real Estate, Operations, Finance and Tax departments...
The popular Swedish music-streaming startup, Spotify, has just purchased The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company in the business of synthesizing billions of data points and transforming them "into musical understanding to power smarter music applications for our customers".
And just who those customers might be? Well, the startup powers a myriad of music services, among them Spotify rivals like Rdio, iHeartRadio, Nokia MixRadio, Twitter Music and others so this is clearly a well played move on Spotify's part.
While The Echo Nest will meet all contractual obligations to all customers, Spotify's Graham James made it clear his company will scrutinize these relationships and "determine the next business steps"...
Flipboard has announced this morning that it has acquired popular news reader app Zite from CNN. The company didn't disclose pricing details, but word has it that it went for $60 million and part of the deal is that Flipboard will begin syndicating CNN content inside its apps.
For those unfamiliar with the app, it's billed as an 'intelligent magazine' that helps you discover interesting things to read. Almost like a Pandora for RSS feeds, Zite analyzes millions of articles each day to offer you content on over 40K topics based on your habits and preferences...