vvswarup

tele1234 said:

Putting aside the fact the guy is a colossal bigot, what's wrong with trying to encourage bringing industry home?

It's stupidly idealistic to say have it done 100% by tomorrow, but something like "50% USA-based profit has to come from USA-manufactured goods by 2023" or something is more realistic, and impose a tax penalty for those that don't - the proceeds of which go towards aiding in funding US-based manufacturing.

First of all, Foxconn doesn't manufacture anything. Foxconn ASSEMBLES the iPhone. The distinction is very important. Manufacturing involves taking raw materials (e.g. steel) and creating a component out of it. Companies all over the world MANUFACTURE the the individual components that go into the iPhone. They're shipped to Foxconn, which takes those components and assembles them. 

Apple doesn't own any production factories. Apple pays component manufacturers to build them to its specifications. The company has no choice but to simply go wherever the best manufacturer is located. If the best manufacturer can't be found in the USA, it's not Apple's fault. Apple has sourced things from American manufactures before. If GT Advanced had worked out, it would have been a great partnership. 

Show me what Apple can do to "bring manufacturing home" when it doesn't own any of that manufacturing. 

I completely agree with some of the points in the article. Google has spent far more R&D than Apple, yet Google remains married to search/advertising. It's not a problem of insufficient resources. It's that Google is scatterbrained. It lacks the discipline needed to turn that R&D into a product/service that can generate cash. Apple hasn't spent as much as Google but it has generated far more profit and cash flow from its R&D. But somehow, Wall Street has chosen to reward Google's profligacy not only with a high valuation but also unchallenged power for its founders.

With that said, this article is reaching for news. It is making a mountain out of a molehill. When a company buys out another, the acquirer agrees to assume most of the target's obligations. The $42 million contract simply happened to be one of the obligations that Google incurred as a result of the acquisition. It was determined that the proposed robot concept was not feasible, end of story. While it is true that Google is good at outlining grandiose, pie-in-the-sky ideas but barely mediocre at delivering on a fraction of that blue sky, the results of this contract don't support that conclusion in any way. To use this contract smacks of third-rate journalism. 

dave marsh said:

brakken said:

Even without checking, I knew this was DED. I love your work!
I am stunned that anyone takes Alphabet-Google seriously at all, any more. 
The only other company that gets such a huge free pass is MS, and they are being consumed by their own lack of taste, too.
I wouldn't be surprised if the anti-encryption people were being financed by these two lame and disgusting companies.

In the meantime, The Macalope wrote a fun article about Apple's foibles. I recommend it!

Don't forget Amazon.  They plow all their profits back into growing the company, and Wall Street loves it, giving them an astronomical P/E ratio of something over 900, compared to Apple's 12.

Wall Street's love affair with Amazon is based on a misguided belief that the more a company spends on R&D, the more innovative the company is. This asinine notion forms the entire basis for the idea that Apple is not investing in its future at all and is just milking the profits of the iPhone. 

R&D does cost money but in the end, a company has to deliver. That R&D has to lead to eventually lead to a revenue stream. Amazon has been saying for 20 years that it expects to lose money as it invests in its future. 20 years later, for all that spending, Amazon should be crushing Apple in revenue growth at least. Apple earns twice as much as Amazon yet still manages to show higher percentage growth rates. Maybe I'll be proven wrong and it's only a matter of a few years before Apple's financials sink to the bottom of the ocean while Amazon will triple, quadruple, and quintuple its growth and it will earn ten times as much as Apple. At least that's what investors think.

Jeff D said:

I would like to point out that Google chose to leave the Chinese market years ago rather than capitulate to the Chinese government's ridiculous privacy restrictions. They wanted Google to block a very large portion of the internet, and report anybody attempting to view anything deemed "dangerous" (AKA critical of the government). That Google rejected these terms and Apple embraces them is a win and a source of pride for Google, not Apple.

Oh please! Do you seriously think Google did that out some altruistic intentions of standing up for human rights? It is complete garbage. Google is rotten from the top down. At the time, Baidu, China's homegrown version of Google was growing by leaps and bounds while Google was languishing. Google walked away from China because it would't have made a big difference to the bottom line to stay in China, simple as that. That the media would glorify Google was a welcome side effect.

Eric Schmidt is on record for saying that if someone had something they didn't want anyone knowing about, they wouldn't be doing it in the first place. Schmidt was CEO at the time. Although he's no longer the CEO, he's still in a position of importance at Google. The people in power at Google have that kind of an attitude about privacy. 

Sometimes, I get the feeling that Google engages in all of its R&D in order to distract the public from how rotten its core business really is. It's definitely working. Google is synonymous with making the world a better place in the eyes of the media despite its core business being built on selling users' search habits to the highest bidder. 

Here's how the media will view it. Google made a major investment in advancing robotics technology and continues to make some major investment while Apple is using existing robots to make a thinner iPhone. Google is investing in the next big thing while Apple is simply using yesterday's technology to make an obsolete product.