“Google Inc., maker of the Android operating system, is considering buying map-software provider Waze Inc., setting up a possible bidding war with Facebook Inc., people familiar with the matter said,” Douglas MacMillan, Brian Womack and Ari Levy report for Bloomberg News.
“Waze is fielding expressions of interest from multiple parties and is seeking more than $1 billion, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private,” MacMillan, Womack and Levy report. “The Palo Alto, California-based startup might also remain independent, instead seeking to raise a round of venture capital financing, the people said.”
MacMillan, Womack and Levy report, “Facebook, based in Menlo Park, California, has held talks to buy Waze for as much as $1 billion, two people familiar with the matter said earlier this month… Apple Inc. (AAPL), which distributes a competing mapping tool, is not currently part of the discussions, a person with knowledge of the matter said.”
Read more in the full article here.
Instead of wearing a crumpled old suit and bowing before the dickheads in Congress, Cook should really look at investment opportunities opening up round the world. What’s the point of being parochial to the point of being a village idiot?
Cook needs to secure his supply lines, both for hardware in the form of IPS screens (Sharp) and software in the form of mapping data (Waze). He needs to extend the capabilities of iCloud to include a file management system. Dropbox would be a good candidate for this.
How about Cook the village idiot thinks about these opportunities than be a slave dogsbody to Congress. That guy’s not a deep tactical thinker, that’s for sure. And by the way, Steve would have worn his iconic Issey Miyake black turtleneck to Congress. Cook panders too much to the witless dimwits in Congress.
Outstanding quote, BLN!
But Apple must be focused on strategic acquisitions (not navigation app this crappy as Waze) in hardware (ok, BLN, Sharp is most strategic…).
I think (and all are in waiting for): APPLE MUST HIRE PROGRAMMERS AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERS FOR DEVELOPING THE BEST STUFF EVER and, off course, empower iCloud services.
I hope WWDC 13 “is the time and…the record of the time” (Laurie Anderson)
apple isnt invincible. they cant just sit around andbassume that everything that they dont make is going to be crap. Apple wont be on top forever…they wont be the leading innovators forever because thats just how things work, but they can certainly prolong their stay by making smart investments and acquisitions
Your language diffuses, nearly negates your message. Crude. Listening to Rush much?…
Yes indeed!
Sometimes you amaze me!! You may have good common sense at times. But mostly you are as sharp as the genius Ballmer. But only half of his wits and nuts !!
Apple may not be interested and may have their own plans for a similar or better feature in their mapping or may be planning to finance Waze under contract without buying.
Who knows!
It’s true that we don’t know what Apple is doing or planning. Only on the surface does it appear that Apple doesn’t seem to be doing anything or interested in anything and that just adds another reason as to why Apple’s share price is in the toilet. Investors like to have some hope but when wealthy Apple seems to be always upstaged by rivals when it comes to bidding for things, it really becomes somewhat disappointing. In the long term it makes sense for Apple to be secretive about its future plans, but in the short term it leads to investor frustration. From Wall Street’s point of view, even with the huge amount of cash Apple has it honestly doesn’t seem as though Apple has some obvious advantage in the smartphone business over any of its much poorer rivals.
If Apple wanted something they would buy it. It seems that Apple has all it needs right now.
If investors don’t like Apple’s secrecy they should buy Google shares. No secrets to worry about with that stock.
From the article:
“Waze, a free service, generates revenue via location-based advertising. Its tools are also available over the Web.”
It would seem that the only interest Apple would have in a company like Waze is for their tech. Otherwise, it seems pretty clear that Apple wants to generate revenue by selling hardware, not ads (although iAd is a ‘me too’ initiative at this point). They probably already have ‘social’ tech being built into their products as we speak. Google probably just wants to soak up Waze so nobody else does, and FB can’t afford to start fresh with this tech- it would take too long to develop their own home-grown solution. So really this is a battle between FB and Google, with Google trying to limit FB’s presence in this market. We’ll see what happens.
The question is: Do you want to spend your money or invest your money? We’re talking about a billion dollars here.
It is not worth a billion for god’s sake…
Is money so worthless today?
unqiue content thank you
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