george kaplan

mjtomlin said:

If Apple make any large acquisition they should buy Sony. Sony could offer so much IP, not just media, but gaming, home electronics, and a ton of other technologies including display and camera.

Yeah, I think the regulatory challenges this would create is great for the legal community, but not very good for Apple or Sony.

Personally, I think it would be supercool to have $200B in the bank.

Wall Street analysts, on the other hand, see $200B in the bank as a problem to be solved. At various times it has been declared essential that Apple buy Netflix, Disney, Peloton, Tesla, Spotify, Cracker Barrel, Dollar Tree, and a dozen other companies.

It is never about synergy or adding value to Apple. It is that analysts love to pretend-spend Apple’s cash pile.

Apple will take a chunk of that cash and buy back shares. Not $200B worth, but tens of millions of dollars worth. It will make 12 invisible purchases of smaller tech companies that we won’t even know about until someone notices the status change on the LinkedIn profile of the CEO of the company Apple purchased. It may elect to boost the spending on production of ATV+ programming in 2024 by $2B to $5B.

Having that cash set aside gives the company the luxury to develop products and buy smaller companies without causing a ripple in the marketplace. Apple is a company which operates on stealth and prizes privacy, so this is optimal for its MO. The stock buyback(s) will placate the “give the money back to the shareholders” crowd (and I am a shareholder), but having a Scrooge McDuck vault of coins is the best way for Apple to do what it does.

Tell me I am not the only lazy reader who sees “Big Breasts” when glancing at the name.

Really? Just me?

To appreciate what Third Street Promenade once looked like, watch Pee Wee’s Big Adventure for the exterior scenes around his store. The shops on the street were very Middle America back then, before the street was reimagined as a pedestrian shopping experience, a walkable outdoor version of the then-current shopping malls.

The rumored price for the M2 Ultra was around $10K. Unless there is a mile of difference between the Ultra and everything else, those who need to upgrade will take the less powerful model and use it until the real deal is finally available. Apple would never have made money on a tiny run of Ultra models (factor in costs for development, future support, packaging, inventory, etc). And as we know, Apple is not a 503(c).