Apple radically cuts down on acquiring firms for technology and talent
Apple bought seven times more firms in 2020 than it now has across both 2021 and 2022 so far, according to new regulatory filings.
Apple only rarely makes high-cost, high-profile acquisitions like its 2014 one of Beats. Nonetheless, it has been steadily and regularly buying up firms, until now.
Apple avoids revealing any details of acquisitions except when required by law. According to Bloomberg, one such requirement has led to regulatory filings that reveal Apple spent $33 million on acquisitions in its fiscal year 2021. So far in fiscal 2022, it has spent $169 million.
That does mean Apple's spending on buying firms in its current fiscal is up five times on what it was in 2021. But it's still a dramatic drop from the year before, when Apple reported spending $1.5 billion in fiscal 2022.
The filings report total spend rather than any breakdown, or any detail of specific deals. The only two confirmed Apple acquisitions in 2022, the UK's Credit Kudos, and AI Music.
In a rare comment regarding buying firms, Tim Cook said in 2019 that Apple was then typically acquiring a new company every two to three weeks.
Cook separately said in February 2022 that Apple had acquired 100 companies over the previous six years. Only a fraction of those deals were ever required to be made public, however.
Based solely on what deals have been confirmed, AppleInsider calculated that it typically takes 18 months for a firm's technology to appear in Apple's lineup. It's a necessarily approximate calculation, however, as even when a deal is known, it can result in behind-the-scenes improvements Apple doesn't reveal.
Compared to its rivals, Apple has traditionally spend less on buying other firms. For instance, Microsoft paid $69 billion for Blizzard in January 2022, and Google bought security firm Mandiant for $5.4 billion in March 2022.
Read on AppleInsider
Apple only rarely makes high-cost, high-profile acquisitions like its 2014 one of Beats. Nonetheless, it has been steadily and regularly buying up firms, until now.
Apple avoids revealing any details of acquisitions except when required by law. According to Bloomberg, one such requirement has led to regulatory filings that reveal Apple spent $33 million on acquisitions in its fiscal year 2021. So far in fiscal 2022, it has spent $169 million.
That does mean Apple's spending on buying firms in its current fiscal is up five times on what it was in 2021. But it's still a dramatic drop from the year before, when Apple reported spending $1.5 billion in fiscal 2022.
The filings report total spend rather than any breakdown, or any detail of specific deals. The only two confirmed Apple acquisitions in 2022, the UK's Credit Kudos, and AI Music.
In a rare comment regarding buying firms, Tim Cook said in 2019 that Apple was then typically acquiring a new company every two to three weeks.
Cook separately said in February 2022 that Apple had acquired 100 companies over the previous six years. Only a fraction of those deals were ever required to be made public, however.
Based solely on what deals have been confirmed, AppleInsider calculated that it typically takes 18 months for a firm's technology to appear in Apple's lineup. It's a necessarily approximate calculation, however, as even when a deal is known, it can result in behind-the-scenes improvements Apple doesn't reveal.
Compared to its rivals, Apple has traditionally spend less on buying other firms. For instance, Microsoft paid $69 billion for Blizzard in January 2022, and Google bought security firm Mandiant for $5.4 billion in March 2022.
Read on AppleInsider
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https://investor.activision.com/news-releases/news-release-details/activision-blizzard-announces-fourth-quarter-and-2021-financial
Note that there was a mysterious two-year delay between OS X Server 1.0 in 1999 and the initial desktop OS X release in 2001. There were persistent rumors that the delay was caused by a Jobs-enforced internal mandate that OS X run on x86 hardware. In 2006, Apple made the transition to Intel CPUs, presumably because they had been running OS X on x86 for years.
It's highly disputable that Apple bought Beats for the hardware either. They really bought it for the brand/market presence to compete with Samsung for the youth market. Dr. Dre's name and likeness was worth way more than the hardware. Heck, Apple recently killed off the arguably best Beats hardware product: the Pill speaker.
No company lives in an immutable dreamworld bubble. Even Kyoto's Aritsugu knife shop (established 1560) has electric lights, a telephone, and a website. If they take credit cards today, that's a new development in the past five years.
Remember that in 1997 Apple was near bankruptcy. A portable music player helped their finances but what really turned them around was this thing called an iPhone.
Apple wouldn't be around if it stayed the same as it was 25 years ago. Don't forget that IBM was the merger of two 19th century companies that originally made scales.
Companies have to evolve for the times because the world won't stand still.
If you don't like the way Apple is being run, write them a letter. It'll help a bit if you're a shareholder and it'll help a bit more if you're a REALLY BIG shareholder. Then get elected to Apple's board of directors if you really want to make changes at Apple.
the reason for the delay is also well known. They had to take Nextstep and change it to a Mac UI and software convention, including many API changes and additions. Also there was a controversy at first as NextStep was basically just lists in the Desktop. Apple had to add icon views as well, which Jobs resisted at first.
apple mostly bought Beats for the subscription software and the value of the founders, both of whom were regarded as geniuses in the industry. But the subscription software was nascent at the time and didn’t have much value by itself. Both Jimmy Lovine and Dr. Dre were the biggest reasons. But the headphone business was the biggest in the world, about equal to all other serious headphone manufacturers put together, and highly profitable. I doubt Apple would have paid $3.2 billion if it were not.
Smaller companies tend to offer up more potential bang for buck.
Take the big three in EDA software as an example. For years now, major advances have come through the purchase startups which were basically created to be gobbled up in the first place as they are unable to compete in a market dominated by few companies.