“With all due respect, there is a reason Wall Street manages money and not companies. Its focus tends to be numbers and the next short-term catalysts for a share price move. Understandably so, I may add. But when you manage a company, short term consideration must be trumped by the far more critical decisions that will ensure the survivability of the company and its prosperity in the very long-term,” Rafael A. Grillo writes for Seeking Alpha. “As in the next 20 years, not only the next three.”
“As content companies like Google and Amazon are launching devices in an attempt to tighten their grip on their customers, so Apple needs to turn into a content company to fully enhance, complete and seal its robust eco-system,” Grillo writes. “Millions of ‘Appleites’ will be only too happy to oblige. In order to get there and truly dominate the space, Apple will need more than just a device: it will need to acquire a broad range of content properties, production capabilities and the infrastructure to deliver this unique content. Only then can Apple create a true, sustainable and impenetrable competitive advantage with high barriers to entry and thus ensure another decade of continuous growth. This is a tall order, and there is no time to internally develop those capabilities nor, as the Maps fiasco demonstrated, assume the risk to do so. Those capabilities must be acquired.”
Grillo writes, “So, leave Apple’s cash pile alone. When would anyone so stubbornly insist in sticking to more than $140 billion in cash when they know they will need it soon? It’s a matter of survival. As bold and outrageous as it may sound, I’d venture to suggest that it will need a bit more than $106 Bn. in the next few months. That is Comcast’s (CMCSA) market capitalization.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote earlier this month: …Maybe it’s insurance in the face of recalcitrant content providers (“last chance: sign the deal or we’ll buy you with petty cash”)?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]