“Investment tycoon Carl Icahn has been bullish on Apple lately. In mid-August, Icahn unexpectedly tweeted that Icahn Enterprises, his diversified holding company, believed Apple to be ‘extremely undervalued,'” John Brownlee reports for Cult of Mac. “Immediately, share prices jumped 5.6%. The next week, Icahn announced on Twitter that he and Tim Cook would be meeting in September to discuss a larger buyback program of AAPL shares. That’s all nice, but Icahn is a business magnate, not an Apple fanboy. So what the heck is he up to here?”
Brownlee reports, “A new theory being put forward by some investors is that Icahn has ulterior motives for his sudden Apple love affair: he wants Apple to buy Nuance, a company Icahn has a large stake in.”
“The thinking goes that Apple might consider itself overly dependent upon Nuance, which sells other voice-recognition solutions to other software providers (like Android) and even makes the popular Dragon Dictate voice-recognition software for PC or Mac,” Brownlee reports. “Apple doesn’t like being too reliant on an outside vendor, so the theory is that Apple should buy Nuance to bring Siri’s core-tech in house for around $7 billion… a mere pittance in Cupertino’s war chest. That would be a good thing for Carl Icahn, who owns a 16.9% stake in the company.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward W.” for the heads up.]
Apple’s already building up an internal group. They got what they wanted out of Nuance and don’t NEED them anymore.
If they did, they would have already bought them.
Actually, that’s not true. Apple has the artificial intelligence team for Siri. They still rely on and need Nuance for voice recognition.
Nuance is not worth the price 7 billion please!
I agree. Although I had hoped they would have purchased them in the passed, $7b is not the price I would have gone for.. I think $3b is a better price.
Quick- passed gas or past?….
7 billion would be more than all of the companies Apple has brought in 25 years combined. not worth it.
Real motive is to bring down Apple like how he destroyed TWA and fatten his wallet in the process.
How much in Nuance is Ichan invested in?
He’s got 16%, like it says. But he has less that 1/2% in AAPL. Let the bitch simmer.
Give me a break, Icahn. You bought a lot of AAPL. Then you started pumping the stock to raise its price while simultaneously pushing for increased dividends so that you can squeeze more cash flow out of your investment. If you can also encourage Apple to spend $7B on a company in which you own a substantial stake, then your $1B investment in AAPL will have paid off handsomely. I understand your motivations, but that doesn’t make me like or respect you.
Honest question. Does Buance also provide the tech for non-European based languages. If not, I can’t see much motivation to buy from Apple’s end.
How much money and ego boost does this f@%#r need?
” Siri’s core-tech’
Actually, Nuance provides the voice recognition and at least the female voice of Siri. The AI, which I believe is the core technology, was developed by SRI International.
“Investment tycoon Carl Icahn has been bullish on Apple lately.”
This sentence written wrong, should be “Investment tycoon Carl Icahn has been bullying Apple lately”.