Perhaps rather then buy a company, Apple could roll out its own LTE communications company and rid itself its reliance on the current AT&T et al. camp here in the US.
Apple is now essentially a mobile communications company. What better way to serve its customers and to control the user experience than by providing the network bandwidth themselves?
Forget the craziness about buying them outright or the naive idea that Apple can build something to match and beat Facebook. Just invest a billion or two into them. At current estimated valuations, a $1B investment gives Apple 3-4% of the company. That's enough to keep them close, out of the hands of an enemy, make them cooperate in Apple's longer term social networking plans (whatever those might be.)
I doubt they'd buy Adobe. They'd have to pay too much ($14B) and get too little (stuff they could probably re-create themselves.) Though, arguably, this is a better option than buying Facebook.
I suppose thy could buy AMD ($5B). That might be really interesting.
Yes when you really think about it only Photoshop and perhaps Illustrator are required. Apple could develop their own for a lot less.
Acrobat is the cash cow at Adobe. Plus, Dreamweaver and inDesign are really good apps as well. Of course Flash would not be much of an asset considering the current bad press coming out of Cupertino.
Adobe also has Coldfusion/JRun, which although not very popular any longer, having been eclipsed by the much less expensive PHP, it is still a fully compliant JEE JSP server on the scale of IBM's Domino. They also have a site analytics application omniture which could be useful against Google.
And there is the huge Font folio that Adobe owns as well.
Facebook would seem to be a strange buy to me. Social network users are incredibly flickle, and I think Facebook is a short term thing. MySpace seemed worth paying a lot of money for to News International a couple of years ago, then everyone moved to Facebook and it seemed like a lousy buy.
I could see the same happening to Facebook.
Apple doesn't need to buy any social site when they are fully capable of making their own . Besides, facebook and myspace have the same damn people per se. Both are nothing but hangouts and the users migrate all over the place.
After all the discussion months ago regarding Apple TV, maybe the eventual direction is to manufacture a TV with the new Apple TV built inside. Not saying tomorrow....down the road.
Good point...If I was a TV manufacturer I would go to Apple and propose my best, largest, thinnest screen and make them a TV with "Apple inside!" to be sold in the Apple stores only. (Then eventually, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Radio Shack and 7-Eleven stores)
the new 3DTV is not selling well and the TV manufacturers are scrambling to find a "differentiator" to set them apart. If I was in tech I would do everything I could to hook up with the Apple train!
After all, it wasn't too long ago that Sony made a Trinitron Monitor (who thinks up these names?) for Apple with the Apple logo on it.
It always struck me as a brilliant metaphor for getting stuck worse and worse in something you should have just not gotten involved in in the first place.
The word you want is 'mired'.
It has an Irish connotation too - boggy ground - making it perfect.
Quote:
mire
noun
a stretch of swampy or boggy ground.
? soft and slushy mud or dirt.
? figurative a situation or state of difficulty, distress, or embarrassment from which it is hard to extricate oneself : he has been left to squirm in a mire of new allegations.
? Ecology a wetland area or ecosystem based on peat.
It always struck me as a brilliant metaphor for getting stuck worse and worse in something you should have just not gotten involved in in the first place.
Yes, that's the exact original meaning, which I figured since you were from Ireland, is probably what you meant.
Acrobat is the cash cow at Adobe. Plus, Dreamweaver and inDesign are really good apps as well. Of course Flash would not be much of an asset considering the current bad press coming out of Cupertino.
Adobe also has Coldfusion/JRun, which although not very popular any longer, having been eclipsed by the much less expensive PHP, it is still a fully compliant JEE JSP server on the scale of IBM's Domino. They also have a site analytics application omniture which could be useful against Google.
And there is the huge Font folio that Adobe owns as well.
I've put this question out there many times and never had a response (from someone who knows such stuff)...
But isn't it possible assuming Apple's worth say 300 Billion presently...that if the market should take a silly 6-18 month nose dive (not sure it would)...say to half it's value...then Apple's at 150B...then couldn't Steve/Apple potentially borrow 100B based on cash-flow levels and cash in hand and actually buy Apple back from the shareholders?
My internet prediction is that's what Steve is waiting for!
Stranger things have happened! Ever heard of Virgin...Richard Branson.
By 1987, Virgin Group PLC's sales had risen to more than $230 million; when combined with sales at Virgin Atlantic, Branson's companies were pulling in over $350 million annually. Interestingly, following the October 1987 stock market crash, Branson took the company private again in 1988 through a management buyout, restructured his companies, and sold 25 percent of his Virgin Music Group for $170 million.
in 20 years, every other consumer electronics co. will come begging for apple to make their products
That would be great! My only complaint with Apple is they prefer to build in China and put all their products on gas guzzling 747's.
I know the economics and the non-existant environmental controls...Autoworkers here in the USA, including the foreign transplants get $28/hr, Mexico gets $7/hr, India, $4/hr and China a $1/hr.
The Chinese will buy 11 million cars next year.
Also, next year China will be the largest manufacturer in the world and by 2020 will have the largest economy....not good!
Apple, could we have a few factories here? I would be happy to pay an extra $10 for my iPhone!
After all, it wasn't too long ago that Sony made a Trinitron Monitor (who thinks up these names?) for Apple with the Apple logo on it.
Perfectly sensible name if you ask me. Most CRT tubes have an elecTRON gun. Sony came up with a CRT that used three instead of one. TRI means three so TRIniTRON makes perfect sense
What would Apple ever need in Facebook? I mean seriously? Facebook is just a big advertising engine with lots of privacy problem. It may generate cash, but then again, so does Apple products. Most Apple products integrate with Facebook already and Ping will likely come on shortly. Why spend billions on that?
Historically Apple buys small companies with large upside in multiples for the investment. Yes they are keeping their proverbial powder dry for a large acquisition but I still can't see what company they would really want to own. A potential large acquisition would primarily serve a market Apple has little penetration. And I'm sure the board of directors at Apple is talking about potential targets. But nothing makes sense to me unless Apple really changes who they are.
For example, they could own much of the business space by buying Dell. But Dell is riding a stable business with stagnant profits and no vision. Steve doesn't want the corporate market bad enough to deal with a company like that and its boring machines.
Adobe could be acquired but it would raise the ire of anti-trust regulators (not insurmountable) and Adobe doesn't have a lot of great upside, unless Steve loses his mind and starts loving Flash. Sure they generate a lot of cash, but so does Apple.
ARM? Qualcomm? If this happened, Apple would end up selling products to all their phone/tablet competitors. Awkward. Many of either of those companies' customers might look elsewhere.
It has an Irish connotation too - boggy ground - making it perfect.
Off topic but interesting: Mired is nice but it wasn't about just a word. The Uncle Remus Story by Joel Chandler Harris was an Aesop's type lesson where punching the tar baby was a really bad idea. Far more than a mere word. He may have based the term tar baby on (ironically) African folk lore which had a similar a creature.
Perfectly sensible name if you ask me. Most CRT tubes have an elecTRON gun. Sony came up with a CRT that used three instead of one. TRI means three so TRIniTRON makes perfect sense
Perfectly sensible name if you ask me. Most CRT tubes have an elecTRON gun. Sony came up with a CRT that used three instead of one. TRI means three so TRIniTRON makes perfect sense
Totally correct: "The name Trinitron was derived from trinity, meaning the union of three, and tron from electron tube, after the way that the Trinitron combined the three separate electron guns of other CRT designs into one."
My first ever TV (That I bought) was a 13" Trinitron in a wood cabinet with a dish type antenna. I loved it to bits even if I did have to sit really close
The last time Apple made a big purchase like these investors are suggesting brought Steve Jobs back to Apple along with the brilliant crew of Next. Since then purchases have been a small chip maker here, a specialized software company there, the jukebox company which iTunes is based on (sorry the name escapes me) none of which are household names.
Apple doesn't seem to subscribe to the mentality of companies like, Microsoft-Yahoo, HP-Palm, Time Warner-AOL, etc... who's mergers or acquisitions have not proven to be great successes. Rumors and suggestions that Apple buy Adobe would benefit nobody but Adobe stock holders. Apple seems to look for technologies that have something new and exciting to offer allowing Apple to realize a product fully. Buying a large expensive company like Facebook (which may have peaked in popularity by now) is not how Apple does business. Why buy when you can license or make a deal to integrate a technology that seems timely giving you a way to drop it when the world has moved on.
Good post.
A big acquisition would say a lot about where Apple wants to go.
There are a lot of reasons Apple might acquire a company:
* Acquiring suppliers to improve its supply chain and margins. I can't see Apple trying to buy Foxconn, Toshiba, etc., to shave a few percentage points down on tear-down costs. Apple already has great bargaining power with its suppliers.
* Taking out a competitor. Computers? No. iPhone? No. Software and OS? No. I'm not sure who Apple could buy that would improve their market share in any market that wouldn't run afoul of DOJ, FTC and European regulators.
* Improving access to content and distribution. I could see Apple buying a studio (Sony, CBS) to improve its access to content, buying a local cable provider (Comcast, Charter, TWC) to get better access to the living room, buying Netflix for its delivery patents or Tivo for its DVR patents (though neither of those would be a major acquisition).
Personally, I would like to see Apple buy a major publication or publishing group like the New York Times or Conde Nast and remake the news and magazine businesses for the iPad age.
I can't help but think that the planned acquisition has something to do with streaming content out of that giant server farm that Apple is building in North Carolina.
Comments
Perhaps rather then buy a company, Apple could roll out its own LTE communications company and rid itself its reliance on the current AT&T et al. camp here in the US.
Apple is now essentially a mobile communications company. What better way to serve its customers and to control the user experience than by providing the network bandwidth themselves?
This.
I said the same in an earlier thread.
Forget the craziness about buying them outright or the naive idea that Apple can build something to match and beat Facebook. Just invest a billion or two into them. At current estimated valuations, a $1B investment gives Apple 3-4% of the company. That's enough to keep them close, out of the hands of an enemy, make them cooperate in Apple's longer term social networking plans (whatever those might be.)
I doubt they'd buy Adobe. They'd have to pay too much ($14B) and get too little (stuff they could probably re-create themselves.) Though, arguably, this is a better option than buying Facebook.
I suppose thy could buy AMD ($5B). That might be really interesting.
It would be worth every penny, just for the irony factor.
Or maybe Apple could buy Danger, then make a bid at Yahoo. The Danger acquisition would...
What? Microsoft already did both those things? Oops, sorry. I forgot about the 'no stupid acquisitions'
phrase in Steve's statement. My bad.
Yes when you really think about it only Photoshop and perhaps Illustrator are required. Apple could develop their own for a lot less.
Acrobat is the cash cow at Adobe. Plus, Dreamweaver and inDesign are really good apps as well. Of course Flash would not be much of an asset considering the current bad press coming out of Cupertino.
Adobe also has Coldfusion/JRun, which although not very popular any longer, having been eclipsed by the much less expensive PHP, it is still a fully compliant JEE JSP server on the scale of IBM's Domino. They also have a site analytics application omniture which could be useful against Google.
And there is the huge Font folio that Adobe owns as well.
Facebook would seem to be a strange buy to me. Social network users are incredibly flickle, and I think Facebook is a short term thing. MySpace seemed worth paying a lot of money for to News International a couple of years ago, then everyone moved to Facebook and it seemed like a lousy buy.
I could see the same happening to Facebook.
Apple doesn't need to buy any social site when they are fully capable of making their own . Besides, facebook and myspace have the same damn people per se. Both are nothing but hangouts and the users migrate all over the place.
Build 21st Century Factory
Make Apple "Made in USA"
in 20 years, every other consumer electronics co. will come begging for apple to make their products
After all the discussion months ago regarding Apple TV, maybe the eventual direction is to manufacture a TV with the new Apple TV built inside. Not saying tomorrow....down the road.
Good point...If I was a TV manufacturer I would go to Apple and propose my best, largest, thinnest screen and make them a TV with "Apple inside!" to be sold in the Apple stores only. (Then eventually, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Radio Shack and 7-Eleven stores)
the new 3DTV is not selling well and the TV manufacturers are scrambling to find a "differentiator" to set them apart. If I was in tech I would do everything I could to hook up with the Apple train!
After all, it wasn't too long ago that Sony made a Trinitron Monitor (who thinks up these names?) for Apple with the Apple logo on it.
Best
Woop. My bad. Sorry.
It always struck me as a brilliant metaphor for getting stuck worse and worse in something you should have just not gotten involved in in the first place.
The word you want is 'mired'.
It has an Irish connotation too - boggy ground - making it perfect.
mire
noun
a stretch of swampy or boggy ground.
? soft and slushy mud or dirt.
? figurative a situation or state of difficulty, distress, or embarrassment from which it is hard to extricate oneself : he has been left to squirm in a mire of new allegations.
? Ecology a wetland area or ecosystem based on peat.
verb [ trans. ] (usu. be mired)
cause to become stuck in mud
Woop. My bad. Sorry.
It always struck me as a brilliant metaphor for getting stuck worse and worse in something you should have just not gotten involved in in the first place.
Yes, that's the exact original meaning, which I figured since you were from Ireland, is probably what you meant.
Acrobat is the cash cow at Adobe. Plus, Dreamweaver and inDesign are really good apps as well. Of course Flash would not be much of an asset considering the current bad press coming out of Cupertino.
Adobe also has Coldfusion/JRun, which although not very popular any longer, having been eclipsed by the much less expensive PHP, it is still a fully compliant JEE JSP server on the scale of IBM's Domino. They also have a site analytics application omniture which could be useful against Google.
And there is the huge Font folio that Adobe owns as well.
Ok, you convinced me ... Buy Adobe
But isn't it possible assuming Apple's worth say 300 Billion presently...that if the market should take a silly 6-18 month nose dive (not sure it would)...say to half it's value...then Apple's at 150B...then couldn't Steve/Apple potentially borrow 100B based on cash-flow levels and cash in hand and actually buy Apple back from the shareholders?
My internet prediction is that's what Steve is waiting for!
Stranger things have happened! Ever heard of Virgin...Richard Branson.
By 1987, Virgin Group PLC's sales had risen to more than $230 million; when combined with sales at Virgin Atlantic, Branson's companies were pulling in over $350 million annually. Interestingly, following the October 1987 stock market crash, Branson took the company private again in 1988 through a management buyout, restructured his companies, and sold 25 percent of his Virgin Music Group for $170 million.
Buy Land
Build 21st Century Factory
Make Apple "Made in USA"
in 20 years, every other consumer electronics co. will come begging for apple to make their products
That would be great! My only complaint with Apple is they prefer to build in China and put all their products on gas guzzling 747's.
I know the economics and the non-existant environmental controls...Autoworkers here in the USA, including the foreign transplants get $28/hr, Mexico gets $7/hr, India, $4/hr and China a $1/hr.
The Chinese will buy 11 million cars next year.
Also, next year China will be the largest manufacturer in the world and by 2020 will have the largest economy....not good!
Apple, could we have a few factories here? I would be happy to pay an extra $10 for my iPhone!
After all, it wasn't too long ago that Sony made a Trinitron Monitor (who thinks up these names?) for Apple with the Apple logo on it.
Perfectly sensible name if you ask me. Most CRT tubes have an elecTRON gun. Sony came up with a CRT that used three instead of one. TRI means three so TRIniTRON makes perfect sense
Historically Apple buys small companies with large upside in multiples for the investment. Yes they are keeping their proverbial powder dry for a large acquisition but I still can't see what company they would really want to own. A potential large acquisition would primarily serve a market Apple has little penetration. And I'm sure the board of directors at Apple is talking about potential targets. But nothing makes sense to me unless Apple really changes who they are.
For example, they could own much of the business space by buying Dell. But Dell is riding a stable business with stagnant profits and no vision. Steve doesn't want the corporate market bad enough to deal with a company like that and its boring machines.
Adobe could be acquired but it would raise the ire of anti-trust regulators (not insurmountable) and Adobe doesn't have a lot of great upside, unless Steve loses his mind and starts loving Flash. Sure they generate a lot of cash, but so does Apple.
ARM? Qualcomm? If this happened, Apple would end up selling products to all their phone/tablet competitors. Awkward. Many of either of those companies' customers might look elsewhere.
Again, who has something that Apple really wants?
The word you want is 'mired'.
It has an Irish connotation too - boggy ground - making it perfect.
Off topic but interesting: Mired is nice but it wasn't about just a word. The Uncle Remus Story by Joel Chandler Harris was an Aesop's type lesson where punching the tar baby was a really bad idea. Far more than a mere word. He may have based the term tar baby on (ironically) African folk lore which had a similar a creature.
Perfectly sensible name if you ask me. Most CRT tubes have an elecTRON gun. Sony came up with a CRT that used three instead of one. TRI means three so TRIniTRON makes perfect sense
Yep, "perfect!"
Perfectly sensible name if you ask me. Most CRT tubes have an elecTRON gun. Sony came up with a CRT that used three instead of one. TRI means three so TRIniTRON makes perfect sense
Totally correct: "The name Trinitron was derived from trinity, meaning the union of three, and tron from electron tube, after the way that the Trinitron combined the three separate electron guns of other CRT designs into one."
My first ever TV (That I bought) was a 13" Trinitron in a wood cabinet with a dish type antenna. I loved it to bits even if I did have to sit really close
Apple could buy Java, then continue to prosecute Google for Java license violations in Android.
It would be worth every penny, just for the irony factor.
Or maybe Apple could buy Danger, then make a bid at Yahoo. The Danger acquisition would...
What? Microsoft already did both those things? Oops, sorry. I forgot about the 'no stupid acquisitions'
phrase in Steve's statement. My bad.
Actually, Oracle bought Java. But we get the joke.
Maybe the Cayman Islands would fit the bill.
The last time Apple made a big purchase like these investors are suggesting brought Steve Jobs back to Apple along with the brilliant crew of Next. Since then purchases have been a small chip maker here, a specialized software company there, the jukebox company which iTunes is based on (sorry the name escapes me) none of which are household names.
Apple doesn't seem to subscribe to the mentality of companies like, Microsoft-Yahoo, HP-Palm, Time Warner-AOL, etc... who's mergers or acquisitions have not proven to be great successes. Rumors and suggestions that Apple buy Adobe would benefit nobody but Adobe stock holders. Apple seems to look for technologies that have something new and exciting to offer allowing Apple to realize a product fully. Buying a large expensive company like Facebook (which may have peaked in popularity by now) is not how Apple does business. Why buy when you can license or make a deal to integrate a technology that seems timely giving you a way to drop it when the world has moved on.
Good post.
A big acquisition would say a lot about where Apple wants to go.
There are a lot of reasons Apple might acquire a company:
* Acquiring suppliers to improve its supply chain and margins. I can't see Apple trying to buy Foxconn, Toshiba, etc., to shave a few percentage points down on tear-down costs. Apple already has great bargaining power with its suppliers.
* Taking out a competitor. Computers? No. iPhone? No. Software and OS? No. I'm not sure who Apple could buy that would improve their market share in any market that wouldn't run afoul of DOJ, FTC and European regulators.
* Improving access to content and distribution. I could see Apple buying a studio (Sony, CBS) to improve its access to content, buying a local cable provider (Comcast, Charter, TWC) to get better access to the living room, buying Netflix for its delivery patents or Tivo for its DVR patents (though neither of those would be a major acquisition).
Personally, I would like to see Apple buy a major publication or publishing group like the New York Times or Conde Nast and remake the news and magazine businesses for the iPad age.
I can't help but think that the planned acquisition has something to do with streaming content out of that giant server farm that Apple is building in North Carolina.