It should come as no surprise that the $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics would result in some fallout for Beats employees.
That other shoe is falling for about 200 Beats workers, who have been informed by Apple that they won't be welcomed into the Apple family.
Beats employees in overlapping positions, such as in human resources, finance, administration and others, will be retained until January 2015, then released to find their own way in the world. Some may find new positions within Apple during the next few months, but there are no guarantees.
Estimates of the total number of employees at Beats varies between 400 to 700, meaning that the layoffs may include up to half the workforce.
Beats was acquired in May, as part of Apple's more aggressive acquisition strategy aimed at music and video content, music subscription services and a further integration into the trendiest and fastest growing aspects of pop culture.
The remainder of the Beats workforce, especially those in creative and developmental areas, will be offered positions with Apple. Given all of the variables, it remains to be seen how many of the 200 employees to be sacked will indeed end up on the outs. Could be more, could be less.
There was nothing surprising or nefarious about the announced layoffs -- mergers and acquisitions commonly create staff redundancies. And as usual, the impact of layoffs fell squarely on employees of the acquired company.
Apple spokesperson Tom Neumayr said "We have extended job offers to every Beats employee. Because of some overlap in our operations, some offers are for a limited period and we'll work hard during this time to find as many of these Beats employees as we can another permanent job within Apple."
Most recently, Microsoft announced the termination of 12,500 employees of newly acquired Nokia. That's about half of Nokia's workforce. It is not clear if any Microsoft employees were given the heave-ho in place of counterparts at Nokia.
In other news related to the Apple-Beats deal, the merger recently received clearance from the European Commission.
"The commission concluded that the combination of the two businesses did not raise competition concerns because the combined market share of Apple and Beats Electronics is low. In addition, Apple and Beats Electronics are not close competitors because the headphones they sell differ markedly in functionality and design."
On the potential impact of the deal on music streaming and downloading services in European Union countries, the commission decided that the transaction "would not give Apple the ability and incentive to shut out competing streaming services from access to iOS," especially since Apple was already active in digital music distribution before the merger.
