“Before Steve came back, sales executives were gutting Apple worse than the Capital One plunderers and rewarding themselves handsomely. (While Michael Spindler was looking to sell out.) None of the sales executives survived when Steve returned, and sales executives were rendered much less powerful. As bizarre as it seems, the sales organization can no longer even do marketing,” John Martellaro writes for The Mac Observer.
“These days, Apple has about $10B in the bank. That’s the result of years and years of rolling the profits into paying off debt and saving for a rainy day. Excellent. That $10B earns a lot of interest. But one analyst asked a few years ago whether Apple was simply running a credit union. The implication is that that much money either needs to be paid in dividends, which Apple won’t do, or be put to good work,” Martellaro writes.
Martellaro writes, “No one knows what Apple has in mind for that kind of money. My theory has been that Apple’s board of directors has been accumulating cash for a seriously large merger at the appropriate time. For a while, some thought it was Disney. It’ll be something much bigger than a mere $500M for a new campus. Or $50M for a new data center. No, I mean something so big, it’ll change the face of computing in America.”
“Apple appears to be transitioning to a much more consumer electronics focus. Back in the days, pre-iPod, when Apple was in its $6B/year doldrums, it was possible to put up barriers, remain a little arrogant (in order to keep the religious fervor alive), create a fever of endless product surprises, and remain distant from its customers. But as the Cluetrain Manifesto points out, companies that put up barriers, lock themselves behind walls, and refuse to actually talk with their customers get into trouble very quickly,” Martellaro writes.
Martellaro writes, “Apple realized that if they were going to become a consumer electronics company, they needed to have a store front presence on Main Street, USA. They’ve solved a major part of this ‘Castle and Moat’ complex with the Genius Bar at more than 150 retail sites, well placed with respect to population centers in the U.S. Even so, it’s interesting that the people who work in the Apple stores are a different kind of Apple employee, badged differently, and do not have a whole lot of authority. In time, that will have to change.”
Martellaro writes, “Apple is a mature company now, both technically and financially. The key to understanding how Apple is going to make this transition — from a computer company that has a popular electronic gadget, the iPod — into a company that has a portfolio of popular and useful electronic devices for the 21st century will be to watch where the money goes, up and down the organization. And with that money, authority and responsibility.”
Full article with much more here.
MacDailyNews Take: Buy Adobe. Clean out the dreck. Discontinue Windows versions of Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere, etc.
Hey, it’s just an idea. 
Related articles:
How long must we wait for Adobe to produce Universal applications for Apple’s Intel-powered Macs? – August 21, 2006
Cost of Apple’s second 50-acre Cupertino campus could top $500 million – April 25, 2006
Video: Steve Jobs meets Cupertino City Council – April 22, 2006
Transcript: Apple CEO Steve Jobs addresses the Cupertino City Council – April 20, 2006
Apple CEO Steve Jobs plans new 50-acre campus in California – April 19, 2006
Should Apple buy Adobe as leverage against Microsoft? – December 16, 2005
Adobe prefers (and promotes) PCs over Macs – March 24, 2003
Why on earth would anyone buy Micro$oft?
Buy SAP instead and Apple will rule The World. Buy both Adobe and SAP ASAP.
“Founded in 1972 as Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing, SAP is the recognized leader in providing collaborative business solutions for all types of industries and for every major market.
Serving more than 34,600 customers worldwide, SAP is the world’s largest business software company and the world’s third-largest independent software provider overall.”
Apple should buy controlling interest in Adobe and lean on the Windows versions a little. Slowly win back all those art departments that the IT people forced to the Win Version of the app the week it came out, thus finally getting ALL Macs off “their” networks. May be a loss leader for a few years, but eventually those departments would be reintegrating Macs back into the corporate world. They should do the same thing with AutoCAD. Controlling interest would finally get us a industry strength Mac Killer App in this area. Removing yet another roadblock. Nobody’s going to retrain all their employees when a simple new computer and upgrade of their existing license will suffice. And again, the IT mindshare has to eat it, nothing they can do about it.
Controlling interest gets Apple the ability to dictate that a Mac version comes first and is fully integrated with a Apple GUI, the rest is the dregs and it’ll happen when they get around to it. Buying hardware companies like Dell is useless, someone else will just fill the void. People buy a <insert gaming station> to just play <inset game>, it’s the same for a lot of computer buyers. AutoCad and Photoshop are two such distinct apps and are heavily relied upon in corporate settings. Apple needs to establish bigger footholds and move out from the ledge it’s been hanging onto. Make a move.
Oh yeah, Tivo won’t work. Everyone and their sister are rolling their own PVR’s these days, many with streaming media options from the home PC are just a year or so off. Even DirecTV is rolling their own starting this year and getting rid of the ones Tivo has built the last several years. The writing is on the wall there.
As much as Apple is copied by M$, Apple does a little themselves. Features introduced by faithful third parties get pulled in on a regular basis. Apple just isn’t as shameful in doing so.
The reason I mention this, is why buy an Adobe or Tivo (as Driver said) when you can create it yourself? Adobe carries en enterprise customer cache that Apple has never figured out to build for themselves. That’s where I see the value in hoarding the cash – buying the enterprise. That’s where the real money is (for computers, not for the consumer electronics like the iPod).
Sony’s struggling mightily. Do we have a new Sony being made here?
Apple should buy Nvidia (market cap less than $10B). Then their rumored aspirations of gaming would more easily come true. Buying Nvidia might also get the small, but dedicated Hardcore Windows gamers to switch to mac and that would in turn lure the gaming companies to Apple. I’m not a gamer, I just think it’s a good idea. I agree with AutoDesk and Elgato too.
Oooh — SAP and Nvidia are both good ideas. But isn’t Nvidia being bought by someone else now?
Although SAP has a market cap about equal to Apple’s, so there wouldn’t be much leverage:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SAP
However, buying a stake in the company and putting a friendly face or two on the board would go a long way.
Driver: The Tivo angle would work well because Apple can add the DRM necessary to make the MPAA and TV studios happy with moving content from a DVR onto computers and iPods, et cetera.
Also, add an iPod doc and it becomes a stereo, hooked up to your entertainment system.
I think Tivo would be a good bet for Apple, and a good fit for Tivo as a company. Otherwise, as you said, Tivo is doomed.
And zupchuck: the reasons Apple should buy Tivo rather than roll their own is:
– Patents
– Marketshare
– Great brand (synonymous with DVRs)
– Existing business deals
Patents, for example, like the ones that a federal judge ruled earlier this month that EchoStar satellite TV infringed upon for their DVR service:
http://yahoo.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2006/tc20060818_359849.htm
Welborn:
“Oooh — SAP and Nvidia are both good ideas. But isn’t Nvidia being bought by someone else now?”
No, ATI (Nvidia’s main competitor) is being bought out by AMD but Nvidia is staying an independant company(for now at least).
Why would adding a iPod dock be such a huge deal? I just think… So what? Denon’s already incorporated iPod dock into models of their lineup, we already have the AirPort Extreme? iPod on a Tivo would not be huge. DRM is nothing as there are other media players out and will find ways to do it as well. Personally I don’t think low res audio is going to do it. I want Apple to license their Airport technology (at least the wired part of it) to companies like Denon. They already have ethernet ports, they already do Plays For Sure Windows music, why not allow them to play Hi Res songs direct from my Apple via the network instead of having to have yet another device in between? Oh yeah, it’s called a DVD/CD player. As far as that relates to Tivo… Sorry I just think they would be buying the recognition the brand has. Tivo wasn;’t even the first to market there, RePlay was and it has a much nicer interface. And as far as the DRM stuff, Tivo has One HD recorder, only works OTA once DirecTV phases out the MPEG2 hardware for their own MPEG4 stuff. It’s fizzling out, Time Warner has their own PVR’s. TW is not going to license another companys interface and pay royalties when they can do a so-so UI and get by. Which they are, and it’s working. Tivo is quickly becoming a bit-player, just has the name that people incorrectly use (Tivo=PVR/DNR).
As far as a cell network or another PDA like Palm, that’s rubbish IMO. Just yet another company in a market already flooded with competitors. Regardless if they add iPod capability or not, which in itself cuts sales of their stand alones.
Again Apple needs those Killer Apps that really have no other competition in the Field. Photoshop, AutoCad are at the top of the list. Word, Excel and Powerpoint are as well but not going to happen. No matter how much Apple spends with iWork it doesn’t, in itself, significantly sell computers. PS and AC do. Think of it as planting seeds. If you want shade it all begins with little seeds here and there. They need to get more computers on people desks at WORK. What they use in corporate settings, they’ll use at home.
MrMcLargeHuge: Ah, yes. Thanks!
Driver: It wouldn’t just be adding a dock, it’s adding the DRM into the Tivo so that the content recorded on it can only be played by that customer (like content purchased on iTunes).
That way, all the legality issues with content coming easily off DVRs is solved — it is for personal use. The iPod dock would also enable playing of iTMS purchased video on your TV, and be yet another way to get music from your iPod to play on a home stereo system, but with a nice remote control that has a huge display you can see across the room. (Apple could make a limited iTunes visualizer for playing during the music.)
Sorry, anything having to do with integrating iTunes audio or video into existing Televisions and Home Audio setups is a joke at today’s standards. High Def TV is here, size of displays are getting bigger and the low res video or audio just doesn’t cut it watching on 40 – 50″ tv’s or listening to it on any decent HiFi system (I’m not talking boom box here). And audio, unless one is using a lossless encoding is also less than optimum. BluRay/HDDVD will allow me to burn my own uncompressed audio from my existing CD collection and get many hours of all my music on a single disc, why should I care about DRM as it applys there. Why would I care about getting DRM’d HD from a Tivo to my computer? Doesn’t do me any good there. Largest average screen people have on their computer is a 17-19″. That’s a step down (and more importantly) backwards from their avg 27″-40″ TV. Besides HDMI/HDCP handles that right now. All Apple has to do to get it to work today is to put a fully compliant HDCP video card and HDMI port on their computers and it will not only work with Tivo, it’ll also work with Time Warner and other DVR’s.
Look at the bigger picture and look long term, at least 3-4 yrs ahead.
Welborn,
Tivo may have marketshare, etc. in the low-def market, but it’s a new ballgame with true HD. Sure, great brand. So is Apple. I don’t know enough about their patents to comment on them being a hinderance to Apple rolling their own. Somehow, I think Apple can make business arrangement more compelling than Apple…
It just isn’t a compelling buy to me when I can plug my Mac in my STB’s IEE1394 port and record and playback what I want.
Most customers won’t be plugging firewire into their TV any time soon, and buying an extra computer to set up near their TV also isn’t really an option. The average consumer just wants a box.
And, HD is fine — switch to H.264 on the new boxes, and have a Blu-Ray drive in the box. If it’s branded and sold as a DVR (especially with the nae “Tivo” and an attachment to the iPod brand), the average consumer won’t see that it’s really basically another computer in the living room. It’s just a glorified Blu-Ray player/DVR/iPod media center that can serve content to any computer in the house.
Just FYI: Sony has had Firewire ports on part of their TV product lines for over 2 years.
MDN: I totally agree. Apple should buy Adobe. If they don’t they’re just waiting for Microsoft to do it. Besides, it’s a completely perfect fit. Almost all Adobe-using people use Macs, and if Microsoft ever threatens to cut off office (or cripple it) Apple can do the same.
I think steve needs to take it easy. If yah nadidameen. I think i drank to much carlos rossi, im feelin hella bossy and before you know it i’ll be cookin up game like emeril lagossi