In Apple's earnings call, Apple was asked how the process 500 million in cash, Jobs replied: Apple will soon usher in a strategic opportunity, but do not want to do stupid acquisitions. Kafka believes that next year such as Facebook by 35 to 40 billion U.S. dollars initial public offering, Apple will be interested.
Here’s what I heard. “I think we’ve demonstrated a really strong track record of being very disciplined with the use of our cash,” Jobs said. “So I think that we’d like to continue to keep our powder dry because we do feel there are one or more strategic opportunities in the future, that’s the biggest reason.”
That could mean a lot of things, but as Kafka wrote:
I don’t remember Jobs every signaling his desire to go shopping quite as openly as this before (feel free to correct me in comments if I have this one wrong). Two caveats:
* Jobs is famous for saying one thing and doing… something else. So don’t get too riled up about this.
* Just because Jobs is talking about spending money on “opportunities” doesn’t mean he’s talking about buying a company. He could be talking about big, hairy capital expenditures, like the billion-dollar server farm it’s finishing up in North Carolina.
So what will Jobs spend the money on? Kafka’s suggestion: Facebook. If Facebook has the option of going public for between, say, $35 and $40 billion, next year, Apple could cover that.
That would certainly qualify as a “strategic opportunity.” Just as Apple has struggled to compete with Google’s web services, Google has been trumped in social networking by Facebook. Jobs and Zuckerberg have even been seen together, Kafka notes.
Ostensibly that involves finding a way to integrate Apple’s Ping music discovery service with Facebook. But while they’re talking…
What do you think? What would you buy if you were Steve Jobs and had $51 billion to spend? Weigh in below.
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