They can always sell/spin out the headphones business once the acquisition stabilizes a little. See also: Google/Motorola.

It's not that absurd when you factor in the profitability of the headphones business. It's interesting, not because Apple would overpay for what they wanted (they didn't), but because they looked past the most obvious aspect of Beats from a market valuation perspective to the relatively more startup-y aspects of it.

Isn't this SV bias? Beats is startup-y? With 300 employees and $1.5bn revenue?

Beats drives a successful marketing business (much like RedBull). I think Apple is buying that. Apple doesn't need to acquire expertise on how to build and sell luxury items.

No, in fact Tim Cook mentioned he was looking forward to what Phil Schiller could do to help Beats product marketing, not the other way around.

Cook also said he was looking to the Beats team (Iovine, Dre) to build revolutionary new products for the music industry. So yes, that is in fact why they bought the company, to figure out the next big new technology products & services for music (is iPod still a "luxury"?)

As for the revenue.. that is exactly why I call it a unique deal. Yes, Apple seems more interested in the nascent music service and the team than in the multi-billion dollar accessories business that probably every single other company on the planet would pay more attention to. I mean they're not throwing it away but it definitely got a minor mention relative to the team & music service. For Apple the headphones business doesn't really move the needle much.. they're looking at the next $100B and that's why they're more interested in the "startup-y" aspects of Beats.

Yet they need expertise in marketing?

the deal seems less absurd if placed in the context of apple's overflowing war chest. even if you ignore the hardware and streaming assets, and assume the deal was purely an acquihire, the deal would be comparable to a company like zynga in 2013 [1] buying a startup for $30M. whether the deal represents the optimal allocation of $3B is another matter, but the magnitude of the deal for apple -- unique in its size -- is not crazy.

[1] http://seekingalpha.com/article/1919501-zynga-cash-still-pil...