Apple to possibly acquire EA?
http://upsidedowncharts.com/2009/04/28/street-chatter/
This comment is interesting.
"I have a feeling that with the success of the iPod Touch as a a game platform and their rumored new ?netbook? which is supposed to be just a 7 to 9 inch iPod Touch they are looking at EA to make this netbook a game machine. Think of all the new netbooks people are buying with windows and linux that don?t do games well or at all. Get EA and focus them on your new device and games made specifically for it and take a huge chunk of that netbook business because yours has games developed for it and you?re making profits on the games as well. If this is true Apple is pushing in a new direction for sure."
This comment is interesting.
"I have a feeling that with the success of the iPod Touch as a a game platform and their rumored new ?netbook? which is supposed to be just a 7 to 9 inch iPod Touch they are looking at EA to make this netbook a game machine. Think of all the new netbooks people are buying with windows and linux that don?t do games well or at all. Get EA and focus them on your new device and games made specifically for it and take a huge chunk of that netbook business because yours has games developed for it and you?re making profits on the games as well. If this is true Apple is pushing in a new direction for sure."
Comments
Good joke.
Why is it not possible?
It would certainly mean they could demand that all EA titles come out to be Mac compatible but they should buy Aspyr too.
EA don't always develop the games they publish though so they may not have control over compatibility. It would still bring some major titles to the platform but whether it would be worth the purchase I don't know. Maybe they could bank on being able to develop their own premium iphone games.
40 million iphones/ipods, one premium game at $10, say 10% of the audience buys it = $40 million per title.
Overall, the comment sounds like another person looking at market caps, and making some wild speculation hoping for everyone else to fill in a reason why this would happen.
Why is it not possible?
Gaming is not the growth market for the Mac. They've got game developers coming to the iPhone, including EA. The overhead is not worth the resources and head aches to support Windows and more.
Gaming is not the growth market for the Mac. They've got game developers coming to the iPhone, including EA. The overhead is not worth the resources and head aches to support Windows and more.
I think the long term idea, should Apple buy EA, would be the same as other software companies Apple has purchased.
Apple purchased Final Cut in the late 1990's. It was originally demo'd as PC/Mac compatable, but Apple contnued development after purchasing and dropped the PC version making it Mac only.
Also Apple in 2002 purchase Logic Audio from German company Emagic. After the purchase the software was majority upgraded to take advantage of the new signal path and low latency technology available using OSX and the dropped the PC version of the software.
On the hardware side Apple are serious about graphics as shown but the recent ex-AMD graphics expert hire.
On the Software/OS side Snow Leopard is going to have exciting graphics possibilities with Grand Central and OpenCL being bedded directly into Apples development tools.
What better way to show off the advantages of Snow Leopard over Windows 7 than buy EA and have them development groundbreaking software/game titles that are released MAC ONLY and marketed as being MAC ONLY because windows technology is so old and antiquated it can't work on PC. Or release both PC and Mac versions of software and intentionally develop the Mac version to look and run much better than a limited (due to the os) windows version.
Vertical integration is very much Apples business philosophy. Apple has the Cash to do it and it also sees how much EA is making from it's iPhone/iTouch titles. It's not hard for Apple to extrapolate how much it believes EA will make from iPhone/iTouch software in the next 10 years which (given the numbers stack up) may justify purchasing the company at current depressed prices.
Also Apple know what the hardware development channel is looking like in the coming years. The best way to release and sell a new product is by showing off it's technical capabilities. Games and graphics are excellent at doing this. But Apple likes to keep everything about it's unreleased products secret so it can't go to third party developers and say please use this unreleased tool-kit to develop a game for this unreleased 10" touchpad. By owning the games company they can sequester the top games developers in the company to 1 Infinite Loop, Corp HQ and have them secretly develop software or port existing titles for unannounced products without the world finding the secret plans.
If Apple could buy EA for a 40% premium on today's market cap of 6.5B you are looking at only 9.1 B dollars. So the question might be, Would Steve Jobs pay 9.1 Billion dollars to give him the ability to have the biggest selling game franchises secretly developed to be launched on, and with, his new hardware platforms (and possibly upcoming propitiatory hardware in Macbook and iMac lines)?
http://upsidedowncharts.com/2009/04/28/street-chatter/
This comment is interesting.
"I have a feeling that with the success of the iPod Touch as a a game platform and their rumored new ?netbook? which is supposed to be just a 7 to 9 inch iPod Touch they are looking at EA to make this netbook a game machine. Think of all the new netbooks people are buying with windows and linux that don?t do games well or at all. Get EA and focus them on your new device and games made specifically for it and take a huge chunk of that netbook business because yours has games developed for it and you?re making profits on the games as well. If this is true Apple is pushing in a new direction for sure."
At some point, I could see Apple moving into "search" and reaping the ongoing advertising dollars from that profit center. In the meantime, they'll work with Google.
At some point, I could see Apple moving into "search" and reaping the ongoing advertising dollars from that profit center. In the meantime, they'll work with Google.
While software patents are still valid, Microsoft/Yahoo/Google have a joint monopoly on traditional search algorithms. Also Google have tied up what appear to be the most efficient methods for contextual text advertising.
Also search doesn't sell hardware and history has shown Apple is a hardware company first. Second it provides software and services, often at extremely low margins, to boost hardware sales.
My feeling is Jobs was pissed off with Microsoft winning the desktop wars and is trying to win or become the major player in the emerging portable computing market. This is a long term not a short term strategy and involves the 3.5" iPhone size devices and possibly larger tablet sized devices to follow. Purchases like PA Semi all fit within this goal of developing the best, in house, hardware platforms in this area and clipping the ticket on all software sales through it's distribution channels.
Relating this to the thread topic. Would an EA purchase help Apple become the dominate player in the personal computing market? I say yes to purchasing EA and I say no to entering "search". Search will simply not sell more hardware.
I think the long term idea, should Apple buy EA, would be the same as other software companies Apple has purchased.
Apple purchased Final Cut in the late 1990's. It was originally demo'd as PC/Mac compatable, but Apple contnued development after purchasing and dropped the PC version making it Mac only.
Also Apple in 2002 purchase Logic Audio from German company Emagic. After the purchase the software was majority upgraded to take advantage of the new signal path and low latency technology available using OSX and the dropped the PC version of the software.
On the hardware side Apple are serious about graphics as shown but the recent ex-AMD graphics expert hire.
On the Software/OS side Snow Leopard is going to have exciting graphics possibilities with Grand Central and OpenCL being bedded directly into Apples development tools.
What better way to show off the advantages of Snow Leopard over Windows 7 than buy EA and have them development groundbreaking software/game titles that are released MAC ONLY and marketed as being MAC ONLY because windows technology is so old and antiquated it can't work on PC. Or release both PC and Mac versions of software and intentionally develop the Mac version to look and run much better than a limited (due to the os) windows version.
Vertical integration is very much Apples business philosophy. Apple has the Cash to do it and it also sees how much EA is making from it's iPhone/iTouch titles. It's not hard for Apple to extrapolate how much it believes EA will make from iPhone/iTouch software in the next 10 years which (given the numbers stack up) may justify purchasing the company at current depressed prices.
Also Apple know what the hardware development channel is looking like in the coming years. The best way to release and sell a new product is by showing off it's technical capabilities. Games and graphics are excellent at doing this. But Apple likes to keep everything about it's unreleased products secret so it can't go to third party developers and say please use this unreleased tool-kit to develop a game for this unreleased 10" touchpad. By owning the games company they can sequester the top games developers in the company to 1 Infinite Loop, Corp HQ and have them secretly develop software or port existing titles for unannounced products without the world finding the secret plans.
If Apple could buy EA for a 40% premium on today's market cap of 6.5B you are looking at only 9.1 B dollars. So the question might be, Would Steve Jobs pay 9.1 Billion dollars to give him the ability to have the biggest selling game franchises secretly developed to be launched on, and with, his new hardware platforms (and possibly upcoming propitiatory hardware in Macbook and iMac lines)?
Apple purchases key technologies from small startups. EA is a management nightmare who doesn't provide Apple technologies to incorporate into OS X. It would be akin to Apple purchasing United Artists for the AppleTV movie lineup.
Apple buys the tools to allow others to deliver the finished product.
Apple could have merged with PIXAR but it never happened and if you knew the companies from the inside perspective you wouldn't expect them to ever merge.
It would be a good investment.
Not for the near term, that's for sure. EA isn't exactly having a great time right now. I'm not sure what they'd be able to offer to Apple, unless Apple were to go out and build a console (not likely anytime soon). iPhone games don't seem to require the level of marketing and production that EA brings to the table.
I think the long term idea, should Apple buy EA, would be the same as other software companies Apple has purchased.
It is still a stupid idea; they would be better off strategically to go and buy out Adobe than purchase something completely unrelated to their core business. That would yield alot better results and gain shareholder backing so then Apple could control the whole graphics widget - from the hardware to operating system to software - where they could work hard out at optimising the software to utilise OpenCL and GrandCentral.
It is still a stupid idea; they would be better off strategically to go and buy out Adobe than purchase something completely unrelated to their core business. That would yield alot better results and gain shareholder backing so then Apple could control the whole graphics widget - from the hardware to operating system to software - where they could work hard out at optimising the software to utilise OpenCL and GrandCentral.
I totally agree about Adobe. That would be the best use of their cash.
That site has an update on this.
http://upsidedowncharts.com/2009/05/...rket/#more-790
They haven't published a good game in years, if ever.
Apple should grab Bandai Namco, and jointly develop a new console. Bandai Namco develops and publishes games EA can only dream of, and will grant Apple easy access to the Japanese gaming market.
EA?
They haven't published a good game in years, if ever.
Apple should grab Bandai Namco, and jointly develop a new console. Bandai Namco develops and publishes games EA can only dream of, and will grant Apple easy access to the Japanese gaming market.