Apple hits high note with Emagic buy

Apple announced Monday that it would acquire the Hamburg, Germany-based music software company and make it a wholly owned division. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Macintosh-based products account for more than 65 percent of Emagic's revenue. The company plans to discontinue its Windows-based products on Sept. 30.

Emagic's most popular product, an application called Logic, is used by more than 200,000 musicians worldwide, according to Apple.

Although Apple warned Wall Street last month of slow sales and a second-quarter earnings shortfall, the Mac maker has been on a buying spree as of late.

The company has significantly beefed up its stable of software for creating multimedia and movie special effects for its Macintosh technology. Some industry watchers describe the moves as an effort to tap the Hollywood market for computers and software related to movie production.

Last month, Apple acquired video graphics software from Prismo Graphics. Earlier in June, it bought digital effects software from Silicon Grail.

In April, Apple purchased Zayante, which makes chips and software for FireWire. Developed by Apple, FireWire is used widely as a high-speed data pipeline between computers and devices such as digital video cameras.

Apple also purchased digital effects software in February from Nothing Real.

Apple will put its newly acquired technologies to use in a variety of ways. Some will be put to work on future Apple products. Others, such as Emagic, will continue on as distinct parts of the company.