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Apple paid a premium to relocate family for NC data center - Page 2

post #41 of 78
10/5/10 at 8:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by screamingfist View Post

It took several offers from Apple for the Fulbrights to consider moving. "They told us to put a price on it and we did," Kathy Fulbright told Bloomberg. Using the funds from the sale, the Fulbrights purchased a 49-acre piece of land with a 4,200-square-foot-house and a Jacuzzi, the report noted.


so they spent most of it on a ridiculous house? another american idiot that can't manage money.

They had to buy an expensive house. Otherwise it would have been a capital gain and they would have lost most of it to taxes. And the fact that they bought 49 acres probably means that the rest of the land won't be developed, which generally is a good thing for the environment.
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post #42 of 78
10/5/10 at 8:35am
How is building a high tech data center help a distressed area?

I guess a few janitors would be in order, but wouldn;t most workers be outside the area?
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post #43 of 78
10/5/10 at 8:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rabbit_Coach View Post

It's certainly a nice thought, but who is able to afford computers built in US? Well for one maybe steve himself, but who else?

Apple computers were originally built in the U.S. and while the market was a lot smaller than it is today and the machines were vastly more expensive (especially considering inflation), people who are working in decent jobs can afford such expenditures. People who aren't working or are working for around minimum wage can't afford even an inexpensive computer. So where do we want to be as a country?

We have to decide as a country whether we want really cheap goods and high unemployment or more expensive goods and lower unemployment. (The reality for many goods, especially brand name clothing, is that we're vastly overpaying anyway, considering the cost of manufacture. Calvin Klein (and others) gets $35 for a single pair of men's undershorts that probably costs about 60 cents to make? I used to buy fairly high-end American made luggage. They moved the factory to Indonesia and then they actually had the nerve to raise prices! It's not like the manufacturing jobs were replaced with higher-level design, marketing and IT jobs.

It's my belief that we're slowly committing suicide. Companies manufacture overseas to increase profits and stock prices, but we're creating a nation of people who can no longer afford to buy those products because they don't have decent jobs.
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post #44 of 78
10/5/10 at 8:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by aaarrrgggh View Post

The reason Macs aren't well suited from a software side is that management tools don't scale that well for 10,000 nodes. The server OS is little more than pretty GUI tools for a unix back-end. Working with raw config files breaks the GUI, so why have it in the first place.

Most corporations with an operation of this size could and usually do write their own software to handle such limitations. There is no such thing as "plug and play" on this scale. Even if you go to Oracle or IBM for a "packaged" solution, they are still customized to fit the specific needs of the customer. Also, I'm sure Apple has a sizable IT department as well as a few developers and engineers laying around they could use.
Disclaimer: The things I say are merely my own personal opinion and may or may not be based on facts. At certain points in any discussion, sarcasm may ensue.
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Disclaimer: The things I say are merely my own personal opinion and may or may not be based on facts. At certain points in any discussion, sarcasm may ensue.
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post #45 of 78
10/5/10 at 8:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by screamingfist View Post

It took several offers from Apple for the Fulbrights to consider moving. "They told us to put a price on it and we did," Kathy Fulbright told Bloomberg. Using the funds from the sale, the Fulbrights purchased a 49-acre piece of land with a 4,200-square-foot-house and a Jacuzzi, the report noted.


so they spent most of it on a ridiculous house? another american idiot that can't manage money.

Nah, they bought more property. It's the land that has value. The structures on the property ("improvements" is the tax assessor's term) aren't worth much. They went from one acre to 49.
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post #46 of 78
10/5/10 at 8:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mjtomlin View Post

I seriously doubt Apple did much negotiating. These are incentives put out by the local council to help bring companies in. This happens all the time to help lure people into an area to build it up.

Exactly. I recall that Honda got about $160 million in incentives to set up a $400 plant in Alabama; Mercedes-Benz, $250 million for a $1B investment, again in Alabama. All states do this. There are dozens and dozens of such examples.

The most egregious one? The Pfizer-CT deal in New London that led to the (ridiculous) Kelo decision of the US Supreme Court (now laid to waste thanks to Pfizer's abandoned plans)!
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post #47 of 78
10/5/10 at 8:57am
This is a picture of their house on the 1.7 million dollar property

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=5927+S...249.97,,0,6.26

Or this tinyurl

http://tinyurl.com/39y6dhw
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post #48 of 78
10/5/10 at 8:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sheff View Post

How is building a high tech data center help a distressed area?

I guess a few janitors would be in order, but wouldn't most workers be outside the area?

Attracts attention to the area; could promote housing and small business growth near and around the data center as well as bring in other large corporations.
Disclaimer: The things I say are merely my own personal opinion and may or may not be based on facts. At certain points in any discussion, sarcasm may ensue.
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Disclaimer: The things I say are merely my own personal opinion and may or may not be based on facts. At certain points in any discussion, sarcasm may ensue.
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post #49 of 78
10/5/10 at 9:07am
Two words that I get so tired of reading in comments on every tech blog on the Internets.

'Linux' and 'Android.'
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post #50 of 78
10/5/10 at 9:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mjtomlin View Post

Not really. They'll use whatever is required. Data centers don't need a lot horsepower, they are more about storage capacity and bandwidth.

However, I'd bet they use Xserves whenever and where ever possible.

Actually the new trend is more powerful servers with virtualzation. Xserves are not that powerful. In fact, power per 1U of rack space is better utilized with a 2U or larger server with multiple virtual servers. Better still are blades which Apple doesn't make. I'd guess they won't be using xserves much at all. Data centers these days is all about conserving energy costs.

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post #51 of 78
10/5/10 at 9:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mjtomlin View Post

Not really. They'll use whatever is required. Data centers don't need a lot horsepower, they are more about storage capacity and bandwidth.

However, I'd bet they use Xserves whenever and where ever possible.

I'm more inclined to think that they would cram the place full of Mac mini servers: the closest thing to a blade server that Apple makes. While idle, it allegedly draws 11 watts.
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post #52 of 78
10/5/10 at 9:29am
It's called "eating your own dog food." by apple using their own products, they can see how they work in real-world scenarios and gain insight on how Mac OS X Server needs to be improved.

Quote:
Originally Posted by lowededwookie View Post

Why buy your own gear? Fill the place with your own gear, take the hit for lost sales, and use the datacentre to shut those idiots who say Macs can't do business up.

That's what I'd do. What better sales pitch could you have than a multi-million dollar datacentre that pushes data around as though it was an air hockey puck over datacentres that run Windows that push data around like it's a brick on a rubber mat?
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post #53 of 78
10/5/10 at 9:29am
NC data center will give Apple the capability & capacity to advance perhaps into Cloud based music, Social networking, Advanced Gaming, etc.
One thing is certain Steve Jobs would not have gone to the expense if there wasn't a payoff to be had.
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post #54 of 78
10/5/10 at 9:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kwatson View Post

A triumph for Apple, yes - they have exempted themselves from a large part of the taxation system, thus increasing their profit at the expense of the US citizen.

You don't buy anything from China, do you?

How is it at the expense of the US citizen?

Is the government giving them a check?

This is a common misconception by the "progressives". A tax break is the government letting someone keep THEIR money, not the government giving someone money. You describe it is almost as if the government is entitled to 100% of someones money and they should be thankful if the government lets them keep a single cent.

The fact of the matter is that cities, counties, states, and countries now compete for jobs. If a governing body wants to attract jobs (they cannot create private secure jobs) then they must give an incentive to a company over locating the business in another area. If it costs 20% less to do business in Texas than say California, a company is going to locate themselves in Texas.
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post #55 of 78
10/5/10 at 9:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by john galt View Post

Dear shareholders: We are asking you to sacrifice a wee bit of your mind-boggling return on AAPL so that NC can spend it on stuff in which you have neither control nor interest.

My willingness to "sacrifice" even more than I have already been compelled to "sacrifice" is zero. As in, zero.

Let me be clear: zero.

And that is why Americans are inferior to Europeans, who are willing to sacrifice a bit to embetter society as a whole. As a result, they have cheaper healthcare for all, potholes are unheard of, and everyone is happier (as proven by surveys and quality of life studies). Your greed inhibits both yourself and your country.

Quote:
Or, we'll just locate our data center in one of the many more places more eager to provide jobs for a few thousand people and tax revenue forever.

China, perhaps. I hear they're interested.

That statement is about as intelligent as the previous one. Please explain to us how a data center that serves the U.S. could be located halfway around the world without very significant latency. We're all listening.
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post #56 of 78
10/5/10 at 9:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patranus View Post

This is a common misconception by the "progressives". A tax break is the government letting someone keep THEIR money, not the government giving someone money. You describe it is almost as if the government is entitled to 100% of someones money and they should be thankful if the government lets them keep a single cent.

Straw man argument. No progressive has ever said the government should take 100% or even close to it. (And before you say "Marx did" that's so last century. I'm talking modern-day era.)

But the social and infrastructure services that businesses require to operate are not free. You think the roads plow and repair themselves? For any business to want to operate tax-free is to freeload. Non-payment of taxes hurts the entire country. As such, tax evasion is downright anti-American. It gets really old hearing conservatives claim to be patriotic at the same time they try to withhold needed funds from the country they claim to love.
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post #57 of 78
10/5/10 at 10:07am
It would sure be neat if they could use bunches of A4's (or 5's or whatever) on blades.
But I don't know, I'm just another stupid American.
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post #58 of 78
10/5/10 at 10:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ArthurIhde View Post

i think they will use liunx

Give me a break. Why on earth would they use Linux? Linux is, by definition, a UNIX-like operating system. They have a FULL UNIX operating system. I'm not sure if you've heard about it. It's called Mac OS X. It is FULLY UNIX.
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post #59 of 78
10/5/10 at 10:40am
Why did Apple need the Fulbright property so badly?
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post #60 of 78
10/5/10 at 10:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kent909 View Post

50 billion in the bank and they negotiate a reduction in property taxes and income taxes. Greed is good!

So I guess you don't understand how site placement and property negotiation works for the impacted counties.

(edited based on previous postings) the reasoning behind the incentivisation were well-covered. Let's look at what the DC brings to the area. First, because you are bringing well-paid professionals into the area, real estate prices will rise to reflect that surge in demand for housing in the area. With more people comes local pressure on resources like grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, entertainment, and other consumables. In addition to bringing jobs into the area, they are increasing demand for the aformentioned resources, which forces more hiring and expansion. This increases the general prosperity of the local economy, and allow health and human service provision to increase as well - better hospital service, and so on. If these are young professionals they are probably bringing families into the area, creating more property tax value for the local schools to budget with. It also means more tax money to support local infrastructure. So the roads get better repairs, power is more consistent, the local telco can finally get that new blade it's been needing. Again more jobs are created than just those listed for the plant itself. This is why politicians offer tax incentives to the company. Because what they offer is small compared to what is gained.
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post #61 of 78
10/5/10 at 11:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kent909 View Post

So what you are saying is if Apple had agreed to pay the standard tax rate that the stock of Apple would have been reduced in value?


Yes, that is correct.

Quote:
Originally Posted by kent909 View Post

Say from $278 a share to 275 a share.

No, not nearly that much.
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post #62 of 78
10/5/10 at 11:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by zoetmb View Post

They had to buy an expensive house. Otherwise it would have been a capital gain and they would have lost most of it to taxes. And the fact that they bought 49 acres probably means that the rest of the land won't be developed, which generally is a good thing for the environment.

This is false. Theres no 1031 tax deferred exchange available for homes, it's only available for investment properties.

They get $500K of gain exempt from capital gains taxes from the sale of their old home whether or not they go on to purchase a bigger better home. They are still going to have to pay a pretty hefty bill in April next year.

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post #63 of 78
10/5/10 at 11:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patranus View Post

How is it at the expense of the US citizen?

Is the government giving them a check?

This is a common misconception by the "progressives". A tax break is the government letting someone keep THEIR money, not the government giving someone money. You describe it is almost as if the government is entitled to 100% of someones money and they should be thankful if the government lets them keep a single cent.

Actually I see tax breaks as the government letting them use resources, both natural and man-made (infrastructure), without paying fair value them.

However, the first poster suggesting this is at the expense of the US citizen in incorrect as well, at least in this case. US citizens on the whole benefit from this deal, billions spent on domestic construction, ripples out from the data center project before it's even operational.

Once it's in operation it does surprise me that it's only expected to have 50 full time employees. I'd imagine that doesn't count facilities personel (janitors / security guards / landscapers / maintenance), but maybe it does...
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post #64 of 78
10/5/10 at 11:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kent909 View Post

50 billion in the bank and they negotiate a reduction in property taxes and income taxes. Greed is good!

I'm fairly certain that you Don't run a business.
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post #65 of 78
10/5/10 at 11:50am
Thank you, Patranus, for the succinct explination of tax allowances.
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post #66 of 78
10/5/10 at 12:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cpsro View Post

Why did Apple need the Fulbright property so badly?

It's in the way of a planned Apple facility. It's cheaper to pay them 1.7 mil to move than find new location or constrict their facility to fit the available land.
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post #67 of 78
10/5/10 at 12:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ktappe View Post

And that is why Americans are inferior to Europeans, who are willing to sacrifice a bit to embetter society as a whole. As a result, they have cheaper healthcare for all, potholes are unheard of, and everyone is happier (as proven by surveys and quality of life studies). Your greed inhibits both yourself and your country.

...something like "I heard China is interested."

That statement is about as intelligent as the previous one. Please explain to us how a data center that serves the U.S. could be located halfway around the world without very significant latency. We're all listening.

KTappe, I like & understand some of what you are speaking about but in a larger sense, You've got to be Kidding!?! Europe is still stuck in a couple of millennium of wars and division that have colored "what's possible" in the European mind. Even with the joy that "potholes are unheard of," they are tend to act more like Grandparents after 2,900 years... America may be more like teenagers, after about 230 to 250 years (you can make fun of this if you'd like)... but what you call greed could be innovation and youthful energy (because it's not as though Europe hasn't had a couple of thousand years of corruption, deciet and <gasp> greed, etc.).

On the second point...he was just tweaking you. You're supposed to chuckle and leave it at that.
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post #68 of 78
10/5/10 at 12:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ktappe View Post

And that is why Americans are inferior to Europeans, who are willing to sacrifice a bit to embetter society as a whole. As a result, they have cheaper healthcare for all, potholes are unheard of, and everyone is happier (as proven by surveys and quality of life studies). Your greed inhibits both yourself and your country.

Americans are inferior to Europeans? How Aryan of you.

"Embetter?" Is that like embiggen? Surveys and quality of life studies have proven the pothole factor a cromulent indicator of economic success and happiness.

As a public company, Apple has a fiduciary responsibility to do what is in the best interest of its shareholders.

Quote:
On the second point...he was just tweaking you. You're supposed to chuckle and leave it at that.

Yes, that was sarcasm. I should have attached an appropriate
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post #69 of 78
10/5/10 at 2:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lowededwookie View Post

Why buy your own gear? Fill the place with your own gear, take the hit for lost sales, and use the datacentre to shut those idiots who say Macs can't do business up.

That's what I'd do. What better sales pitch could you have than a multi-million dollar datacentre that pushes data around as though it was an air hockey puck over datacentres that run Windows that push data around like it's a brick on a rubber mat?

Are the Chinese factories where Macs are manufactured all run exclusively with Macs?

Did the hospitals where Steve Jobs got his cancer surgery and liver transplant use Macs exclusively? Were the surgeons who operated on Steve Jobs and saved his life all Mac users? If not, then imagine all the fun Microsoft and Dell could have with this.
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post #70 of 78
10/5/10 at 3:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot View Post

Of course, Apple could have taken them to court, had the state or county declare "eminent domain" and taken the property... in which case the owners would have gotten maybe $170,000 for it???

Seems like Apple realized they could treat those folks better than the government would/could.

I completely agree. It's good PR for Apple and it makes good business sense.
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post #71 of 78
10/5/10 at 3:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Haggar View Post

Did the hospitals where Steve Jobs got his cancer surgery and liver transplant use Macs exclusively? Were the surgeons who operated on Steve Jobs and saved his life all Mac users?

I don't know, but the story is that when Steve Jobs went for his surgery, he said to his surgeons, "please tell me you're all Mac users." To which the head surgeon replied, "we're all Mac users today."
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post #72 of 78
10/5/10 at 3:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by freddych View Post

This is false. Theres no 1031 tax deferred exchange available for homes, it's only available for investment properties.

They get $500K of gain exempt from capital gains taxes from the sale of their old home whether or not they go on to purchase a bigger better home. They are still going to have to pay a pretty hefty bill in April next year.

Given enough lead time, they could qualify for a 1031 exchange. They can also reduce their basis if they've improved the property during the time they owned it.
Please don't be insane.
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post #73 of 78
10/5/10 at 5:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kent909 View Post

So what you are saying is if Apple had agreed to pay the standard tax rate that the stock of Apple would have been reduced in value?

So what your saying is that by not offering tax breaks Apple would have still built the data center there?

Are you also implying that the value of the taxes is more than the associated economic impact of having Apple build a data center in their state?

I realize people that are generally pro-big government strenuously object to any disruption in the filling of the tax income trough, but simply collecting taxes is not always the best source of revenue for a municipality.

Indeed, with the second highest corporate tax rate in the world, it's pretty easy to see the drop off of economic activity in the US vs. past years.

And every time some idiot Democrat gets up and starts spouting their class warfare rhetoric about "rich" being $250,000K and above I want to puke - small business owners, which are the backbone of our job market, often exceed $250,000K in income - and typically plow the majority of that back into their businesses too.

Our regressive and punitive income tax system is going to be the final nail in our economy if people don't stop listening to populist rhetoric and get some common sense

Then again we have people who think debt is good running around too. sigh...
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post #74 of 78
10/5/10 at 5:56pm
Sounds like someone is suffering from a bad case of talk radio poisoning.

The real story is that large corporations can often demand property tax and other forms of give-backs from local governments because they are able to play jurisdictions off against each other. Which they can do irrespective of whether they've made the decision to locate somewhere for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with taxes. Can individuals do that? Of course not. So when the corporations don't pay for the cost of providing services, somebody else does. I wonder who that is?

Making this sound like a good or fair system requires the application of a whole lot of cognitive dissonance. Sadly, there seems to more than enough of it around.
Please don't be insane.
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post #75 of 78
10/5/10 at 6:41pm
Not really. They'll use whatever is required. Data centers don't need a lot horsepower, they are more about storage capacity and bandwidth.

However, I'd bet they use Xserves whenever and where ever possible.


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post #76 of 78
10/6/10 at 12:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by gerald apple View Post

A triumph for Apple to own this land and build a factory in the US. I am glad people in our own country will start working there and NC economy will start to prosper once again. I am sick of Made in China and other parts of the world except our own country.Hopefully Apple will start to manufacturer computers there also and not made in China and boost our economy instead of theirs.

It is obvious that you didn't understand what you read, try reading it again. It is a data center NOT a factory.

Kind of weird comments from a registered user that is from the Philippines.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

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Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

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post #77 of 78
10/6/10 at 7:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mjtomlin View Post

I seriously doubt Apple did much negotiating. These are incentives put out by the local council to help bring companies in. This happens all the time to help lure people into an area to build it up.

Also, the contracts to purchase the land were probably drawn up a long time ago (3+ years) as it takes time to design a building of this scale. You can't draw up plans for a building until you know the land it's going to sit on. At that time Apple didn't have "50 billion in the bank".

the design came from msft denver windfall model
updated and made green
the real change is in SW .

Apple will build at least 10 more of these giants
and of note
its 2 locations build back to back

i expect S W canada to be next ..Vancover ??


APPLE is now so large and so humble that i thought of them wHen seeing SKY-NETt take over the world in Terminator 3.....STEVE STEVE don't do it
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post #78 of 78
10/8/10 at 3:09am
If anyone hasn't noticed, iOS is Apple's main priority. Not software or the Mac. I doubt if they'll be interested in creating their own version of Creative Suite. They don't even update their own software or for that case their hardware.

I reacently updated to CS5 and the experience has not been very pleasant, I have to go through all my work, because some previous features doesn't work anymore. The Mac certainly isn't Adobe's main priority anymore, which is where the biggest part of the creative community resides.
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