Apple acquisition possibilities.
During the Conference Call an Analyst asked why Apple wasn't buying back stock when the time seemed appropriate. Apple answered that they wanted to keep their cash reserves ready for possible aquistions and other reasons.
Apple has been shy on the aquisition front. They've parlayed their last aquisitions into a formidable video production workflow (by acquiring Nothing Real, Emagic, Spruce, Rayz, Prismo Graphics and Zyante).
I think the next wave of acquisition is going to be centered around buiness tools and Enterprise level applications. Apple has damn near 5 Billion in the bank. It's time to get a little spendy.
This is the spot to put some suggestions. In what direction to you think Apple should move via aquisitions? And what companies to you think they would be interested in.
My thoughts
Education
Apple aquired Powerschool but hasn't done much with it. Blackboard seems like the major competitor. Should Apple buy out Blackboard and merge the two products to form the Uber Edu too?
Business
Security is huge! Buy Symbiot Security and push it to every paranoid company you can.
Creative
My personal favorite is 3D company Luxology, this would be a great pickup because in addition to a new legacy free codebase you pick up excellent talent in Allen Hastings, Stuart Ferguson and Brad Peebler.
But the big fish would have to be SideFX's Houdini it runs on Win2k, Linux, IRIX, and Solaris operating systems. There is absolutely no reason why Houdini shouldn't be on OSX. I think it's time for another Shake deal here. Drop the Irix and Solaris versions and keep Win, Linux and OSX.
I'll add more later as they come to me.
Apple has been shy on the aquisition front. They've parlayed their last aquisitions into a formidable video production workflow (by acquiring Nothing Real, Emagic, Spruce, Rayz, Prismo Graphics and Zyante).
I think the next wave of acquisition is going to be centered around buiness tools and Enterprise level applications. Apple has damn near 5 Billion in the bank. It's time to get a little spendy.
This is the spot to put some suggestions. In what direction to you think Apple should move via aquisitions? And what companies to you think they would be interested in.
My thoughts
Education
Apple aquired Powerschool but hasn't done much with it. Blackboard seems like the major competitor. Should Apple buy out Blackboard and merge the two products to form the Uber Edu too?
Business
Security is huge! Buy Symbiot Security and push it to every paranoid company you can.
Creative
My personal favorite is 3D company Luxology, this would be a great pickup because in addition to a new legacy free codebase you pick up excellent talent in Allen Hastings, Stuart Ferguson and Brad Peebler.
But the big fish would have to be SideFX's Houdini it runs on Win2k, Linux, IRIX, and Solaris operating systems. There is absolutely no reason why Houdini shouldn't be on OSX. I think it's time for another Shake deal here. Drop the Irix and Solaris versions and keep Win, Linux and OSX.
I'll add more later as they come to me.
Comments
Pinnacle has let Commotion Pro rot on the vine. It was once the favorite rotoscoping tool out there. Apple should consider picking up Curious Software and their two products gFX which is a modern replacement for Commotion for Rotoscoping and Paint. And the added bonus would be their World Map software for broadcasting any type of Map you can think of using 3D.
Somehow I still believe the rumors about Apple creating a new audio app aside from Logic or any other emagic project. It makes too much sense because although Logic is great it's not an app you're going to want to do Post Production audio on. Apple needs a good plugin base and preferrably someone familiar with OSX. Enter McDSP Colin McDowell's brainchild. Not many plugins but the stuff is well liked and having Colin on staff to assist in porting and creating new plugins would be handy.
Originally posted by Existence
Adobe.
Originally posted by Existence
Adobe.
Yeah I've always thought Adobe should buy Apple
I'm starting to realize there doesn't appear to be a way for Apple to buy its way into the business sector. Hell open up a computer catalog and it's all Microsoft tools.
As silly as it might sound I'd love for Apple to buy a smaller game company. Apple could have defrayed some of the movement to Directx if they had a game company spitting out OpenGL games.
Another company that is mildly interesting as an aquisition is Dantz Development . Dantz hasn't been so hot recently but they have decent product in Retrospect and it's cross platform. Might be something that Apple could put under the Filemaker brand or under Apple branding.
Adobe's stock is also tanking and will probably continue to decline, while Apple's stock will continue to rise due to better than expected earnings. It would be more of a merger, but it's possible.
Originally posted by Existence
Apple's market cap > Adobe's market cap.
Adobe's stock is also tanking and will probably continue to decline, while Apple's stock will continue to rise due to better than expected earnings. It would be more of a merger, but it's possible.
Hmmm haven't checked Adobe's numbers recently. I thought they were on a roll. I thought you were being facetious :P
TC Electronic Might make a good fit. This company makes plugins for audio as well as hardware that goes pretty high end on audio side. They have DICE II tech for Firewire and come with an excellent reputation. The link above shows the Powercore Firewire which is an effects box that comes in PCI or FW versions and runs high quality plugins without sapping your CPU.
Celemony the makers of Melodyne have a great product that has amazing potential. It's an app that use complex mathematics to represent audio pitch and formants. These characteristics of audio can be manipulated along with time to correct singing/speech or just manipulate sounds in very interesting ways. It's not just an Autotune competitor. Apple could hopefully aquire the app and utilize parts of its tech in other apps as well as maintain the app as a wonderful seperate app.
Originally posted by hmurchison
I think the next wave of acquisition is going to be centered around buiness tools and Enterprise level applications. Apple has damn near 5 Billion in the bank. It's time to get a little spendy.
Put it into WebObjects! Please!
I've just started learning WO. If Apple put a huge wadge of cash into improving and marketing it, they'd have the best enterprise solution available!
Amorya
Originally posted by Amorya
Put it into WebObjects! Please!
I've just started learning WO. If Apple put a huge wadge of cash into improving and marketing it, they'd have the best enterprise solution available!
Amorya
Yes everyone keeps telling me about the power of EOF and WO but it's not something you can easily digest without the necessary experience. WO 6 should be out hopefully next year with perhaps a clarfied stance.
buy avid, kill avid for FCP, add protools to the apple war chest.
Macromedia's market cap is 1.49
However with Macromedia you risk pissing Adobe
off by encroaching into their territory.
I think with aquisitions Apple tends to look for small companies(Nothing Real, Rayz, Prismo Graphics) so that the damage to end users on non Macintosh computers is slight. The Emagic buy was difficult for PC users but Emagic sales were still %70 Mac based. I think Apple didn't want to pursue buying Maya for the same reason. Overall the Maya tools for Mac are less than %10 of the company. Avid falls into this same range.
If Apple wanted to get wild and crazy they could dig deep and try to get
Autodesk they own Discreet so Apple gains high end CAD and Post Production tools. Autodesk's market cap is 4.4 billion.
I see Apple's future aquisitions as primarily happening with private firms. Much less hassle. I bet they have their eyes on more than a few companies. I think they will make some purchases by mid 2005 in key areas and we'll start seeing the fruits of this by OS 10.5.
AAPL: 20.51B
ADBE: 13.37B
This is truly incredible!
? Have a major inroad to small businesses and incentivize them to switch.
? Package the Windows versions of Quickbooks and TaxCut with Quicktime, iTunes (Benefit: increasing penetration of Apple products on Wintel) and a cross platform office-type product. The cross platform office product could be a minimal cost to Quickbooks buyers. This would also loosen the stronghold Office has on the Windows platform.
? Intuit has a strong relationship with banks and online banking with the Mac is currently flaky with some institutions.
? Apple may also be able to provide xServes to the banking industry once the relationship matures.
Many similar benefits would come with an acquisition of Adobe.
Originally posted by Vox Barbara
Nobody has mentioned a respectable Office Killer
I was thinking that. I really love office 2004 (i justify it that it is mac people working for microsoft) but i would love to see what apple could do.
Apple / Claris works truly sucks and is totally unusable.
It would be cool to see what apple could do in imaging. I am a diehard PS fan but if apple made something better, i would be there in a minute.
To turn the tables. I wonder is MSFT will ever do a hostile takeover of Apple. I would be in a corner crying but it could happen
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=2y&s...c=aapl%2C+msft
it is interesting to see the growth of Apple and Adobe agaisnt the lack of Microsoft. Maybe there is hope. This is over twi years
If that link doesn't work check it out below/.
Just to be fair, http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=ADBE...=l&c=aapl,msft is VERY different but that is before apple got good (IMHO, OS X and the second coming of Jobs)
This would be a multi-faceted choice: It would bring increased Mac support and optimization to Apple's customers, as well as Pixar.
Originally posted by Jwink3101
To turn the tables. I wonder is MSFT will ever do a hostile takeover of Apple.
I can't see this happen - the anti-trust lawyers would have a field day and Microsoft needs some viable competition to keep it out of trouble with the EU and other consumer protection organisations. Sony or IBM, on the other hand...
Originally posted by hmurchison
Audio and Video
Pinnacle has let Commotion Pro rot on the vine. It was once the favorite rotoscoping tool out there. Apple should consider picking up Curious Software and their two products gFX which is a modern replacement for Commotion for Rotoscoping and Paint. And the added bonus would be their World Map software for broadcasting any type of Map you can think of using 3D.
We use Curious Map at work and it's one gigantic steaming pile, but it gets the job done.....just painfully slow. The other gfx program is alright, we had a demo from a Curious rep. about a year ago to replace the Liberty software we use, but it was just a little strange and unfinished.
-I think their parent company produces short films (Pixar could acquire them?)
-produces Invader Zim DVD's
License agreements
-Nickelodeon/Viacom (iTMS content- perhaps episodes of Nick shows, eg. already Telstra in Aust. will soon offer paid downloads of tv shows).