Apple eyeing billion-dollar acquisitions, push into TV market - rumor - Page 3

I hardily second this. Thank you.

Exciting... I'm sure it's gonna work great... in the US.

I don't care if it is a new box for the TV or a new TV.

I WANT CONTENT !!!

I am tired of paying $130 a month so I can watch 5 or 6 channels that interest me.
For that kind of money I want to be able to choose what channels I want to watch, period.
Most of the stuff I am getting is nothing but junk!

This just in.....
Apple will buy Space X and begin launching their own satellite TV business. In addition they have agreed to buy HBO and Showtime. Apple will get out of selling earthbound boxes (computers, phones,
pads etc.) and focus its attention on signals from space. Grin

They should think big and buy Disney. I hear they do some TV stuffs.

-Chris

Ironic considering that there were Disney buying Apple rumors for years while Apple was still struggling in the 90s. It won't happen, though.

Of course, you might pick Sony up these days for a billion or so.

On a serious note, Apple usually makes small acquisitions (<$250 million) they feel can provide big multiples of income after some nurturing. iTunes was the ultimate example of that. Going big for a billion dollar company would be a shift for them but I suspect they will still try to do the same thing they have been doing for their smaller acquisitions.

I'd like to see them buy back Pixar from Disney. Disney doesn't know what to do with it except force them to make more and more sequels (Toy Story) instead of being creative and developing new products. Then they need a cable channel.

Well I think if Apple is going to get into the cable STB business, smartest thing to do is buy Motorola.

I work at a cable company and most of STB are Motorola's, the DAC is by Motorola, we have a lot of Motorola stuff in the head end. Motorola is also looking to get out of the STB business.

But if I was Apple i'd wait til Tru2Way is truly functional. If Apple would also get its head out of its ass and use blu ray that would be awesome as well. Apple designs the ultimate set top box with apps from the iOS, blu ray player, dvr cable box all in one.

Have 32 GIG of flash on board for your apps, guide data, and settings. A 500 GIG laptop drive in there for the DVR and multimedia storage. I know there is a lot of you saying already thats not enough then get an external drive to attach to it.

Then with the right software stream it back to your computer and throw your recorded show on your iWhatever.

agree, focus on the core items
From biz point of view, it's bad form to keep all that cash laying around doing nothing. Either invest, lower margins to increase market share or give it to share holders.
IMO there is lots of room for improvement to core products. Like the idea of a media hub, but I think I read steve wants something alot faster than standard wifi. Also would like to see an ipadair(iPad laptop style, with a swivel screen that folds to iPad form factor).

making mobile me free would be a nice thing.

Lots of good ideas in the discussion, keep them coming.

Ah-mazing. It would be funny if I could get a boxee box top service before boxee box even comes out through apple TV. As long as they have youtube and rev3, maybe netflix as well it would be an awesome device.

Adobe is worth 12B last time i checked - oh man if they could buy that. Autodesk is only 6B. Lets sell more macs!

I don't see how buying either company would significantly add to Apple's profits.

Whereas the television thing really could.


C.

Disney did not buy Pixar.
Pixar took over Disney and was paid $7.4B to do so.

Apple did not buy NeXT
NeXT took over Apple and was paid $429M to do so.

C.

thanks dude

ok ok

a total media center plus all of what am apple mac OS CAN do connected to your tv screen and other screens in your house that holds 500 g OF media content ...

AND WOULD SYNC WITH ALL YOUR PLAY THINGS LIKE POD TOUCH PAD IOS4

hmm lets call this ATV

yet i feel the ipad already can do same with a few tweaks

so kill ATV

and make the ipad your new ATV plus add 2 1tb backups
and you can watch tv and your kids can play the ipad games

so mini as a ATV .. full computer stuff

ipad or itouch as ATV
doubles as its own portable fun machine and you can visit a local bar >> slave their tv and watch your own stuff

have a great day guys my kids want to compare my scars to franken steins


peace

9

"Wall-E"?
"Up"? (Nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, no less).

Pixar Movies

Other than, of course, the millions of graphics designers who switched to Windows when Adobe started making crappy Mac software. If Apple were to redo CS5 to take full advantage of the Mac's performance capabilities and usability, they'd get many of those designers back. Lots of new hardware sales - which is a very important consideration.


I guess that depends on what 'television thing' you're referring to. Frankly, the margin on TVs is low enough and the value added falls outside of Apple's core competencies, so I don't see any value in selling a TV. If you're talking about some kind of a set top box, that's a possibility, but doesn't require an acquisition (unless they were to buy Slingbox).

Adobe already make okay Mac software.

If a handful of graphic designers returned to Mac because Apple caused Adobe to sabotage its PC software, I am not sure the resulting profits would be even visible in the bottom line. Everyone is buying Macs now.

At one point in time the revenues from computer sales to graphic designers was an important issue for Apple. Now it is not. Apple's computer sales are heading in the right direction. But consumer electronic profits from phones and iPods and iTunes music have passed sales of Macs.

That fact is what will determine Apple's next steps to generate growth. The TV thing is ripe for growth.


Manufacturing televisions is not going to make any money for anyone. Nor is selling set top boxes.

The goal is Apple doing with home movies and TV, the same thing as it has already done with music.

Apple displaced the traditional network of record stores, CD publishers and so on - with a single Internet based distribution network - leveraged by an elegant playback device. iTunes benefits consumers, offering lower prices and more choice. It also benefits content creators by allowing them access to a huge market. It's only the middle men who lose out.

Apple clearly want to repeat the same trick with TV. Displacing traditional networks, of disc vendors, cable channels and satellite broadcasters, with a single internet-based media network - which delivers content direct to viewers via some elegant TV add-on.

The Intel based AppleTV was not it. It was too expensive for consumers - did too little and became one of many set-top boxes competing for space beside the big screen.

The project needs a reboot. The hardware needs to be cheaper. Consumers need to subscribe to content services, not compelled to buy single shows. The content deals need to be better. The device needs to be better integrated with the TV and do more. Ideally, the device should be seamlessly integrated into the TV - so that it is invisible.

The real breakthrough in nailing this gigantic market will be solving the advertising problem. For decades, advertising is stuck in a stone-age dumb model. Advertisers pay too much to push their stuff blindly to all consumers, regardless of demographics, regardless of age or gender. This is bad for advertisers and bad for viewers.

The future is targeted advertising. Relevant to the consumer, laser targeted for the advertiser.
Google have been wanting to do this for a while. But I'd wager that Jobs is keen to drink their milkshake before they have had the first suck.

Jobs will secure better content deals. - And after failing the first time, he will get the hardware right. A tiny A4 powered slab - paid for entirely by content subscription and advertising revenues will potentially have the power to upset the TV applecart in much the same way as the iPod changed music.


C.

Awesome!

You're underestimating the value of computers. It's still a multibillion dollar business for Apple - and the high end systems bought by graphics designers are undoubtedly very profitable.

I won't argue as to whether Adobe makes 'okay' Mac software because that's a matter of definition. But they clearly don't make great Mac software like they once did. Look at how long it has taken them to take advantage of Apple technologies. At one time, 90% of graphics designers (and 90% of Adobe revenue was from Macs. Today, it's less than half. If Apple could make Adobe's software great on Macs again, many of those designers would come back.

Let's say Apple could convince only 1 M high end graphics designers and 1 M low end graphics people to come back. The high end person might buy a $5,000 computer every year and the low end person maybe a $3,000 computer every other year. That's over $6 Billion per year in new revenue.



So, after waving your hands and solving all the problems, the world is wonderful. There are a lot of problems there:
- Getting hardware down to a price that you consider 'cheap'.
- Getting better content deals. Apple hasn't been able to get great content pricing on iTunes, why do you think they'd get a great deal on 'the TV thing'?
- Dealing with competition. If Apple did get a reasonable content price, everyone and his brother would have at least as good a deal (or better if the way publishers are treating Amazon over music access is any indication). Quite a few people have a big head start over Apple.
-
Could Apple do something great? Sure. But the problem is trying to do something great that they could make money from. Jobs already said that they have no idea how to do that in the TV business. I'm not holding my breath.

Well, I agree that Adobe's software hasn't been of the highest standard, however, it isn't limited to only their Mac software. Which is why your assertion that millions of graphic designers switched to Windows from Mac because of Adobe is completely absurd.

Let's see. Adobe makes a large public announcement that they are going to focus on Windows first and then maybe the Mac if they get around to it. They fail to take advantage of key Mac features like Altivec for a long, long time. A number of developers publicly stated that they were switching because Adobe had clearly dropped its interest in the Mac.

At that time, the Mac had a clear performance advantage (when properly written programs were used), so it wasn't about performance. On high end systems like key graphics designers use, Macs weren't significantly more expensive - and there was plenty of data that users gained enough in productivity to more than make up for any price difference.

So, given those facts, why do YOU think that we went from 90% of graphics designers using macs to under 50%?

Where do you get these figures from? Are you a graphic designer?

I worked as a professional art director and graphic designer in NYC for 20+ years. I worked at large ad agencies and also did lots of freelance. Not one of the companies I worked at use PC/Windows in the design department. They all use Macs. ALL of them. So, I know for a fact that you are just making this shit up.

Grin.

Apple's increasing share of the PC marketplace is pretty meteoric. Buying Adobe in order to compel them to make marginally better Mac software in order to sell more computers to people who already buy those computers seems to be a weak commercial argument.

C.

An A4 based solution would be not dissimilar to an iPod touch without the screen, without buttons and without the battery. So small enough for the device to become invisible. Consumers don't want more boxes.

So cheap, it is cheap enough to give away with a content subscription. And the the price of zero is a magical psychological barrier, which lets you get a lot more units out there.

The presence of the App store on the device is another hook to bring customers in.

It's the number of units out there that in turn drives the content deals.

The current way content gets to TV screens is via broadcast technologies and disks. It is inevitable that in 20 years time, most content will arrive in your TeeVee via an internet-based distribution network.

Apple currently leads the internet distribution game. Either they can sit-back, do nothing and let someone else get there first, Or they can pro-actively aim to change the game.

There is really only one unanswered question. How to solve the advertising problem. This is the area where Apple do need to make acquisitions.

C.

Is that specifically what they said?

URL?

I don't recall what they said, but concentrating on Windows software was what they did. Not that the argument for Apple buying Adobe makes strategic sense either way.

How about Adobe's annual report? Is that good enough for you?

Greater than 50% of Adobe's revenues are now WIndows software. Whether your agency uses Windows or not is really not that relevant - unless you're pretending that you're a significant percentage of the entire market.

Pretty much all of professional 2D production is on Macs. But that is not all that Adobe makes.

The 3D market is dominated by Windows PCs - So if Apple wanted to sell some computers to professionals, it would make more sense to acquire Autodesk, than Adobe.

But it will not.

C.

Not really. First, there isn't even a Mac version of Autodesk software (although one is promised). If Apple acquired Autodesk, it would take a while to port the software. Then there's the problem that there are plenty of alternatives to Autodesk software. So if someone is using Autodesk, they can either switch to other software on their existing hardware or they can switch to Macs and continue to use Autodesk. Many people would stick with Windows. To make matters worse, very few people are able to do all their work with AutoCAD. They combine it with other software to complete their tasks. So if they wanted to switch to the Mac, they'd have to switch ALL their software, including some for which there are no Mac versions. It just wouldn't happen.

In the case of Adobe software, OTOH, almost everything already exists in both versions and many CS5 users don't use anything else (other than MS Office which also exists on the Mac). So if Apple made the Mac version good enough, they could switch with relatively little pain, other than the cost of new hardware. Since many high end users are replacing hardware very frequently, that's not that big a deal.

My point is that if Apple's goal was selling more Macs to professional markets - then it would achieve more growth to move into a market where Macs have hardly any footprint (3D) than a market where Mac use is pretty much saturated (2D)

The truth is that Apple will do neither, because capturing these niche markets is time-consuming and expensive and ultimately will sell very few additional machines.

Instead, Apple chooses to focus on capturing a wider consumer market. It believes (rightly or wrongly) that is a more productive use of its resources.

C.

Subscriptions and itunes is where the money is. Apple could sell an all in one media device as the living room hub for $99 in a razor/blades approach. They could offer a 'subscription' to itunes and make tons of profit from that. This all in one ios living room device would tap those that don't like watching movies on mobile devices like the ipad/iphone/ipod touch. There's a huge market out there of people that would like an all apple integrated system but would like to kick back and watch movies on their big screen. They could sell the box cheap and make the money on subscription fees.

Your correct Motorola by far has the complete end to end solution thus the reason that been successful, which is also the down side. The current systems work well, but everyone is trying to move to an IP solution which does not relay on a Motorola only solution and they are having problems, just look all over Europe.

Tru2Way has failed, I believe Cable Labs has given up on trying to make this work, it was suppose to the be the solution to a true consume based STB that you could by at any electronic store and replace the cable card, well that is not going to happen any time soon.


AT&T and U-Verse is a Microsoft solution and AT&T has made a huge investment in this, if the were smart they would kill it but I is not they simple for them. I highly double Apple and AT&T could work out a deal here unless they can some how work in parallel with U-Verse.

why thank you !!

mobile is free for all the back end users
mobile me will be the true house that will connect us all together

9

thank you

i got better


9