Apple Denies 200 Jobs Cut At Beats, But Admits Some Are Coming
UPDATE 2: Sources close to both Beats and Apple are denying earlier reports of 200 person layoffs at Beats, but admit that some may be coming soon: "We're excited to have the Beats team join Apple, and we have extended job offers to every Beats employee., and Apple spokesperson told Billboard. "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."
The original story:
Apple is eliminating close to 200 postions at Beats, including those in redundant positions. Some of the laid off recieved their pink slip over the last few weeks. According to 9To5Mac's sources, the primary losers are in such areas as finance and HR. Development and creative types are being split between Santa Monica and Cupertino and hardware workers may be moving to Cupertino. After some uncertainty, it's now clear that Trent Reznor and Ian Rogers are making the move to Apple.
“Last week everyone was given an offer from Apple. Some were transitional offers with a set end date,” a source close to the situation told the NY Post.
9to5Mac's been talking to sources and coming up with details about how Apple is fitting Beats into their world:
"Beats’ support, finance and HR departments are said to have already been largely dismantled, with some workers being laid off in the past few weeks, a few offered definite positions in Cupertino, and others being offered positions until the end of January 2015."
"Many Beats employees in development and creative roles have been offered positions at Apple. Many of these employees will be offered space in Apple’s Cupertino offices, but Apple is said to plan to retain the Santa Monica offices, and select engineers on the Beats Music streaming service will continue working out of Southern California."
"It seems likely that the headphone and speaker makers will make up the majority of the new Cupertino staff."
"A source now says that both [Trent] Reznor and [Ian] Rogers will join Apple."
As 9to5Mac points out, Reznor has had some strong words about Apple's app approval process, but that was in 2009. He seems more ready to play company man these days.
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Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) also blogs at DanceLand. Send news about music tech startups and services, DIY music biz and music marketing to: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
