The phone maker HTC and its Beats Audio division (think Dr. Dre headphones) are close to wrapping up a deal to acquire the troubled music subscription service MOG.
A music tech industry source close to the situation says the parties have agreed on a price in the $17 million range, and are now working out the final details of the sale.
HTC released a short-and-to-the-point denial statement today, reading: "Rumors and speculation of an acquisition of MOG by HTC are untrue." (Yes, but is Beats Audio buying MOG?) Beats Audio didn't respond to a request for comment.
The deal makes complete sense to both Beats Audio and MOG. Beats has aspirations of offering an online music service,cheap beats by dre, but lacks the expertise and battle-hardened digital music tech to build such a service. MOG has those things. With MOG ...
