“It’s generally known that Apple has used an economic slowdown in the past to get a jump on the competition, for example in 2001-2. Now, almost a decade later, technologies have changed, and the things that Apple can do with much more capital are dramatically different,” John Martellaro writes for The Mac Observer.
“Back in 2001… Apple had US$1.191B in cash, $2.836B in short term investments and $300M in debt. That left them with $3.727B, which is a nice chunk of change, [but] since then, [debt-free] Apple has been accumulating cash at an amazing rate, and, according to Peter Oppenheimer at the last earnings report on January 21, Apple has US$28.1B in cash and marketable securities,” Martellaro writes.
“While many companies are laying people off and begging for government money, we all get the feeling that things have fundamentally changed, going from bad to worse. Apple is a company that, with nearly US$30B in cash assets, can continue to build on its dream,” Martellaro writes. “It’s not a time for being too conservative, and future historians will judge Apple by the boldness of its vision while everyone else is in the dumpers.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What has happened in technology over the last few years has been about the downturn, not the future of technology. A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of [customers], they would continue to open their wallets. – Steve Jobs, August 2003
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Dell and HP to slash notebook R&D – September 25, 2008
