With news of Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics breaking today, Billboard reached out to prominent executives and thinkers from across the music industry to get their thoughts on the deal. 

[…]

Everyone’s vying to turn streaming into something that will be profitable, but for the winner, revenue may not come to a music service alone. Apple is fundamentally a lifestyle hardware company. Beats Electronics is a powerful lifestyle brand. The downturn in download sales means Apple has a brief window of opportunity to get into the streaming market with a service that can be easily integrated into their OS. It’s still a walled garden, but there may be more walls.

At the end of the day, it costs Apple relatively little to get in the game, because they have a lot of spare cash. What will be interesting to see is whether a successful, integrated hardware and streaming brand under the Apple umbrella will make any long-term difference in artist revenue. 
Casey Rae, Interim Executive Director,  Future of Music Coalition 

<p “=”“>[…]