Apple’s sudden urge to splurge on acquisitions

“Apple isn’t anyone’s idea of an acquisition machine, especially compared with Google or Oracle,” Adam Satariano reports for Bloomberg. “Even as Apple has piled up cash—almost $150 billion—it’s largely kept to the go-it-alone ethos established by Steve Jobs. In 2013, as profits plateaued for the first time in about a decade, that changed: The iPhone maker snapped up businesses that offer it a chance to add technology for future products.”

“Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said in October that Apple bought 15 companies in the fiscal year that ended in September, compared with five known acquisitions in the previous one,” Satariano reports. “Although the broader implications of the purchases remain to be seen, some shore up areas where Apple wants to improve, from search and mapping software to semiconductors.”

“Apple prefers deals that allow it to quickly absorb technology or engineers with little fanfare, says Benedict Evans, an analyst with Enders Analysis in London,” Satariano reports. “‘When startups are bought by Apple, ‘they disappear,’ he says. ‘A year or two later, you can see how they’re using it.’ Consider Siri, bought in 2010 with its eponymous company, or the iPhone 5S fingerprint reader, unveiled the year after Apple acquired print-scanning company AuthenTec.”

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