Steve Jobs says Apple must 'think big' with $40 billion in cash - Page 2

Early adopter refunds anyone?

"Think big" doesn't necessarily equate with either financials or size, that seem to cloud most people's judgements.

I'd wager he's referring to big ideas ... creating new futures and the products that will be part of those. Look at the iPad for example ... it's a new, simple way of accessing, well, pretty much anything. And that's why it's going to succeed in spades, if only because we don't even see the long-term vision yet of Apple with regards to this new device.

Steve's not in it for the money, anymore. That's long, long gone.

Ideas and creativity are/can be so much bigger than money.


Yes, I can in fact. Then again, I'm Canadian (with a degree in Geography too). Our education system isn't quite as broken.

Does that include iGore?
No thank you.

... yeah, but Steve's [best] friend bought it instead!

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Screw Fort Knox I'm gonna work up a Apple Heist. Just gotta find where they keep all that cash.. Probably under Steve's mattress. I may need some more manpower any takers??

There's an app for that.

I think Jobs' "thinking big" is to see the whole picture, not to make silly investments or short-term decisions based on the quarter to quarter numbers.

AIR, Apple set up an investment company in Nevada (to avoid high taxes in California).

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Apple should buy Dell, shut it down, and return Dells value to it's shareholders ;-)

Why dont spend some of those 40 billion in giving apple costumers a laptop with the latest processors technology like Intel i3 i5-i7 and a minimum of 512 mb video card
PLEASE!!!

SJ says Apple need to think BIG? So does that mean no more "Hobbies" but instead deliver real ful fledged products, not betas. An AppleTV with a real TV screen perhaps. Scrap the old AYV completely and really deliver something and while your at it gives us a refund for that hot lemon jukebox disguised as something really uselful?
Come on Steve, Apple is now an electronics company now, right? You've forgone on computers the last 3 years. Where's our i5 laptops? Deliver the goods. Compete against SONY too just not Microsoft and Amazon.

If Apple's goal is to focus on quality and not marketshare then that's where their spending will go.

This is already noticeable with the iPad getting IPS screens and selling for under $500.

The laptop line should get the same treatment. Buying into exclusive deals with high-end display manufacturers. Buying up companies like Fingerworks and PA Semi for intellectual property and assets.

They've bought some of their biggest products. itunes used to be SoundJam (which I remember using on OS 9), Final Cut Pro was bought, Shake bought, Logic bought, OS X bought from Next.

Their pro apps could use some attention and they'd do well to buy up innovative smaller companies like The Foundry. There's also the little companies that make useful products like Transmit for FTP, Omni apps developers, Quicksilver maybe, Coda/Textmate, Pixelmator to rival MS Paint and bundled, even Skype.

All these refinements go into giving their products an edge over competing products.

Of course, the mindset can change as time goes on. Apple doesn't do mass-market because they have highly priced products. There will come a time very soon where something like the iPad will house a dual 2GHz CPU or more and be priced at $500 or less.

That's when things start to change dramatically because people stop buying the uber-expensive machines they don't need. The competition won't be able to match Apple's quality so they have the edge.

Thinking big really has to be outside of the space they are in right now. Energy is one area that's going to be huge and very important to all gadgets - battery technology is one thing. If Apple can make proprietary batteries that last 10-100x longer than they do now, they will make a killing selling them to their rivals. Wireless power transmission is another area.

I never understood this either until I worked for a company whom I won't mention in name. I could not believe how utterly stupid the morons who rose to the top were. These people were visionless, talentless, and the products stunk because of it.
I tried to make them see sense, but it was like banging my head against a brick wall. They made every textbook mistake at every given opportunity.

I left the company to wallow in it's own excrement.

Now it makes perfect sense as to how so many companies fail to produce quality goods.

Maybe you meant Slovenia

AAPL could use a small portion of the $40B to build relationships with Netflix, Amazon Video, Sirius-XM, Hulu, etc. and put all those capabilities into Apple TV so it can graduate from Hobby to Money-Maker. If not, Wal-Mart with its new acquisition, Vudu, is going to eat a hole into iTunes movie sales and rentals and then have Apple TV for dessert.

Bloomberg (link below) says, " The company had about $25 billion in cash and short-term investments as of December."

Can anyone reconcile those two reports?

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...-update1-.html

There is a difference between big and wide .. chuckle

Basically they are thinking of big products that can sell 10s and 100s of millions. And reject good products (ideas) but less than a few millions. Ax example that has been stated multiple times is of Apple TV. Currently it is quoted as a hobby because it is <10m. But Apple will keep investing because they believe it can be much bigger later.

ok. but so you don't sound like a Republican nay-sayer, what do you propose? Let's hear something positive. Or perhaps your position is they should do nothing, which is ok but not stated in your reply above. You always have good ideas here. Share some!

Technically, you buy it for a multiple of earnings, rather than revenue.
Last I checked, Apple is trading at about 23X earnings.

Non publicly traded companies typically sell for 5 to 6 times earnings.

Not too long ago, the media said Apple was financially unstable (which was never true). You can google "beleaguered Apple Computer Corp" and mouth breathing idiots were actually saying Apple had no future.

"Apple's iPod spurs mixed reactions -- 2001"
http://news.cnet.com/Apples-iPod-spu..._3-274821.html

Et cetera

Apple is going to make robotic sharks - robotic sharks with frick'n laser beams on their head.

What was not well thought out about them?

I certainly see nothing wrong with "analyze its impact on the environment". Apple has lots of cash to spend, and that would be a great way to spend some of it. I'm disappointed they chose not to.

Buy the NFL. Kick DirecTV out. Build subscription TV from there.

Don't look for Apple making any large mulit-billon $ acquisitions. Historically that's not their style. Sub-billion is though.

It'll be interesting to see what they have cooking by his statements. Sounds like some radical new stuff coming down.

I'd be for that.. as long as Al Gore weren't involved in any way, shape or form. The guy's a huckster, a fraud, and a hypocrite.

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"Think Big"

Hell Yea, what Apple and Steve have been doing from Day One

Or try it this way ...

Change The World

Is THAT "big" enough for you ?

And how we'll do that ?

No problem - Karma and Fate will show us The Way, The Path

When the time comes - we'll know what to do - will be evident

Is simple as can be

Ain't Life Great when you follow The Tao ;-)


BC

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I'd say he's an intelligent Nobel Prize winner who's doing very good work. :-)

It would be great to have him back in the White House.

Nice try. You obviously have no idea how much the NFL is worth. $40b would merely be a down payment, and leave the company broke.

I sure hope that was dripping with sarcasm!

Leader of the biggest scam since Jesus.

He invented the internet don't you know.

I knew it!! They're going to purchase Yahoo!

That would actually work.

you may well be right, the thing is that "thinking big" was juxtaposed with their liquid assets, whether that figure be $25B or $40B. That doesn't lend itself to thinking about sub-billion-dollar projects.


You're right, I knew something was off, I wasn't sure.

It's not the small shareholders like you or I that matter though, it's people like Fidelity and Barclays who hold about 5% each of Apple, and hence of the cash pile, they own $2bn each, that matter.

That said, it's highly unlikely they would object to whatever Steve Jobs wants to do given his remarkable track record. The mind boggles at what he might do with a bold $40bn move!

Why buy a company that has nothing to offer? Palm is the 90s Apple of the 2010s except they have no future.

Apple should buy Comcast or AT&T and pump 1GBps fiber to my house.

Actually I was kidding, and I have a pretty good idea what the league is worth as well as each team.

I did write a while ago that I thought Apple should have at least been looking at bidding for tv rights.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1575...on-an-nfl-deal

Well, I think Apple has perhaps started its "Think Big" campaign with its huge data center in North Carolina. It's been perceived to be a data center for the iTunes/App Store, and perhaps that could be true. But could they be making a move to be a full fledged wireless data provider? They don't need to be a telco - they don't need to be a cable operator - they just need to provide a data pipe. They have no legacy to hold them back from implementing the next gen network that their devices will demand.

The single biggest threat to Apple's growth and innovation is going to be their dependence on their carrier "partners" getting their network up to snuff. Of course, the way AT&T goes on, it would seem that $40 billion is not enough to do the job. But, hell, if Apple was making the money from the devices as well as all the subscription revenue, they may have the cash flow to do the job.

I'd like to see it.

- edit - If I'm not mistaken, Sprint is just under 10B market cap. Buy them and their network and own the whole bag of beans.

-Blurp

Going from their last 10-Q, The difference looks like mostly long-term marketable securities ($15B), plus a few other things. Cash & cash equivalents and short-term marketable securities total $24.7B.

A sexier, more stylish America.

The whole country looking like San Francisco. Sounds like a plan!

With Apple's growing control obsession? I'd rather have Bush back in office.

Back on topic, $40 billion isn't exactly chump change! Whatever you do Apple, don't get delusional and think you're gonna buy Yahoo or something.

Buy Electronic Arts.