Will Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine Become Apple's Newest Execs?

 

Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine

 

by M. Quintero-Moore

According to sources close to the Apple/Beats' $3.2 billion acquisition talks, Apple may announce Dr. Dre and Beats’ co-founder, Jimmy Iovine as its latest recruits during the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) scheduled for June 2-6 in San Francisco. The event is an opportunity for engineers and application developers to get a first look at Apple's most recent developments with their operating platforms.

The much talked about deal is expected to be announced later this week, and insiders are fairly certain Dre and Iovine will join the makers of the iPhone and iPad in some sort of executive roles, which has yet to be determined or confirmed.

Billboard Magazine's sources believe that Dre and Iovine would likely oversee all of Apple's music strategies, and handle relationships with labels and publishers. Which makes sense since Apple's download sales took a 13% nose dive in Q1 2014 and has continued a slow but steady decline. Not a promising future for Apple's iTune store is the leading digital music store within the U.S. with over 70% of song and album download sales. Now, Apple is looking to get a share of the subscription streaming market as part of their portfolio.

Dre is no stranger to WWDC (sort of). It was almost ten years ago that he appeared in a live video link to congratulate Steve Jobs when Apple launched the iPod and the iTunes store.

The Apple/Beats deal is expected to take about two months to close, and the company might wait till the closing to unveil the executives as Apple employees.