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Apple had a near death experience and had to rely on others to get it through the tough times. Never again. Keep stockpiling the cash for the rainy days.

May 05, 08 - 07:54 am Comment from: MCCFR

And darn right that strategy is as well.

You look at Apple's performance as a company, both technically and commercially, when it used to pay dividends back in the 90s.

If you want a stock that pays an income, go somewhere else. Apple is about capital growth. End of story.

Kevin: Apple had a near death experience and had to rely on others to get it through the tough times.

Even when Apple was in the doldrums during Steve's exile it wasn't actually starved for cash.

You're probably referring to the (transient) Microsoft buy of some small amount of Apple stock back then, but that had more to do with strategic issues than with cash. And it's long gone and part of history by now.

May 05, 08 - 07:58 am Comment from: TowerTone

Uh oh. Don't let Hillary know they made a profit...

May 05, 08 - 07:59 am Comment from: Cubert

And it will help take the OS to 11!

Apple knows what it is going to do with its cash, and is lying in wait for the opportune moment. I still believe it wants to be a network provider of some sort. IPTV for Apple TV, ubiquitous wifi for its mobile devices via subscriber sharing. It would be typical Apple MO with regard to its parterships; learn from them until their is no need for them.

May 05, 08 - 08:16 am Comment from: ron

"Uh oh. Don't let Hillary know they made a profit..."

Or Obama. If the dems win watch out for your own money. If you can find it after a couple of years into their reign. The 'Fairness Doctrine' will shut down free speech also. The McCaine mutiny won't be much better. Let freedom ring....Hahahahaha.

May 05, 08 - 08:25 am Comment from: qka

Stock buybacks are always the moves of a desperate company.

imagine if apple bought an island in the pacific and called it

"iLand"

and then have a utopia


Yes it's crazy talk when talking billions of dollars of possibilities

May 05, 08 - 08:41 am Comment from: Zune Tang®

Apple might want to consider investing in a little something called 'research and development' to catch up to the revolutionary technology in Microsoft's fantastic Zune MP3 player otherwise the gains they have achieved with their I-Pods will be lost.

In other words, Apple can't sell their half-assed copy of the Dell Digital Jukebox and compete against Zune forever. It might be time for Cupertino to get off their ass and come up with something. My 2¢.

Your potential. Our passion.™

May 05, 08 - 08:47 am Comment from: Anim8me2

@ron
You sir, are a tool who knows not of which he speaks.

May 05, 08 - 08:55 am Comment from: Des Gusting

Maybe one day soon Apple could buy Micro$cum, then shut them down. That would be fun to watch!

May 05, 08 - 09:03 am Comment from: ron

Animeatme2. When you have been around as long as I have you may achieve a little wisdom.

Age doesn't auto-mean wisdom or correctness...perhaps you being around so long simply means you're starting to mold. The sooner you and the same thinking can be tossed out with the rest of the old bread, the better.

a huge part of apple's future lies in a wide range of mobile devices. offering a network/wifi service of its own for theses devices would be a killer. this or bying 25% of intel to secure exclusive custom chips no one else can offer (imagine an even thinner successor to the macbook air (if that's possible) and no other pc maker can offer something of a similar size because of a one year exclusive)

May 05, 08 - 09:27 am Comment from: auren

Now let's see, $20 billion in the bank at say 5% return (very conservative) and that is a cool $1 billion a year just on the interest. Ya gotta like that little shot to the bottom line!!

May 05, 08 - 09:33 am Comment from: DLMeyer

ron, thanks for including McCain on your list of "those who want your money". Though, I expect his grab would be quicker and deeper.
Someone should tell Todd Bishop that Apple has been "cash rich" for well over a decade. Back when the stock was trading at under $15 they had over $8 a share in cash - almost worth buying it up and extracting the cash ... if you had the billion$ to work with. Many companies act as if debt is an asset that can be leveraged. Wrong!

@qka

Stock buybacks are NOT a result of a failing company.

May 05, 08 - 09:58 am Comment from: shen

@ron

a little wisdom?

"Or Obama. If the dems win watch out for your own money. If you can find it after a couple of years into their reign. "

yeah cause the party that destroyed the middles class, cut taxes for the wealthy and has run us through what amounts to a 7 year recession for those making less than six figures has been SOOOO good for handling money.

look, the facts are simple, the republicans account for 75% of the debt of the US over the entire existence of the country. your meme is wrong.

if by 'wisdom' you mean "ignorant clueless tool that repeats talking points without thinking,' then yeah, you are steeped in it.....

shut up, your betters are talking.

back to the article, i agree with others a type of wifi or carrier network looks good, but what typical Apple move will they make to change the game and both increase profit and eliminate headaches at the same time?

May 05, 08 - 09:58 am Comment from: silverwarloc

@jtc:

It's NOT a result of a failing company as you say. However, when a company buys back their stock, it normally is a harbinger of bad things to come. Look at the several companies in the last five years that did this. You will see a trend. Is it normal? For me, no. But, it could be disconcerting to others (analysts).

Zune Tang-

Your messages of late are more than a little on the lame side. You need to think more before you write. It used to be fun to read your wit as it was laced with fact and fiction and a good clean fun point to poke at Apple. Todays input just seemed lame, more like- I had better write something, but I don't know what I can write that makes sense...

Don't get down, just a little critique. We will await your better days returning.

ron

"Uh oh. Don't let Hillary know they made a profit..."

Or Obama. If the dems win watch out for your own money.

I don't want to be rude, but are some of you USAnians really that stupid? George Bush used the fear and paranoia of the US population after 9/11 to fund a massive military campaign of failure to the tune of half a billion dollars, and then set up a massive parallel bureaucracy to spy on the US public and help the debt spiral out of control to an all time high, and there are still people that believe that Republicans are fiscally responsible and Democrats "tax and spend"?

Please tell me that you are not that blindingly stupid. Please.

May 05, 08 - 10:05 am Comment from: ron

shen, Where I come from, it is rude to say 'shut up' to anyone. But that is precisely what dems always try to do. Silence any view which doesn't toe the party line. You should remember that during the time you crow about, the dems have run congress. The president does not spend money, only the congress has that power.

@His Shadow
He is and there are far too many who are either being stupid or blinded by their own fears. It makes me tremble for my country.

May 05, 08 - 10:16 am Comment from: limey

desperate <> failing

However MS has lost its way, and a company that loses its way tends to buy back stock so that they have less stockholders to disappoint, and artificially boost a sagging share price (amongst many reasons for stock buy-backs.)

The modus operandi of MS has to change. The Yahoo debacle shows that they can no longer buy their way out of trouble. MS's leadership is stagnant and needs to be shaken up.

MS has so much employee talent which is being wasted without good direction.

I'm surprised there has not been a stockholders' revolt.

my 2¢...

May 05, 08 - 10:38 am Comment from: Renderdog

Half a *trillion* dollars, sadly.

Not only a waste of money, but of lives as well.

@His Shadow: What half a billion dollars? The all-up cost is likely to reach 3-trillion dollars!

Back to the article; I wonder what Apple could possibly buy that would be a good fit. Adobe? No... not until Adobe's market position and stock price has been weakened. Historically, Apple has always led in the adoption of new technologies, and Adobe was an early beneficiary and benefactor. Unfortunately it has become somewhat of a monster. I expect Apple will use its cash stockpile to lock new technologies into its proprietary platform early from now on.

In a sense Apple and Microsoft's cash positions reflect the way both companies have been thinking - forward for one; backward for another.

May 05, 08 - 11:08 am Comment from: iamdj

@ron

What the deficit Bush and his cronies have racked up hasn't taken anything out of your pocket?

As usual, the dems will rescue America and get us out debt and bring back out self respect.

May 05, 08 - 11:28 am Comment from: Crabs

"Apple's pile of cash growing rapidly" becomes political bickering. Thank you for proving a point of mine.

Dismantle Partisanship. Stop the Hate.

May 05, 08 - 11:58 am Comment from: MCCFR

The president does not spend money, only the congress has that power.

Ron,

You have to bear in mind that we're dealing with an administration where the Vice-President appears to believe that he can create new branches of government that exclude him from congressional or judicial oversight, so I wouldn't go long on making statements regarding the powers of the three 'official' branches of government if I were in your shoes.

And let's bear in mind that when the current Congress tried to tie conditions to the approval of yet more funding – requested by The White House and The Department of Defense – for the War That Was Never Required™, the current President simply vetoed that version of the bill.

The President that you appear to support and the previous three sessions of Congress conspired to create the single largest public deficit in US history. Even greater than that of Ronald Reagan (!) which is a heck of an achievement.

As things currently stand, 46% of all general taxation goes either on defence spending or interest on the public debt. Given your allegedly great age, it won't bother you that the current generation taxpayers are being bilked by the Federal Government.

And when I use the word 'bilked', I mean it: that money isn't being used to build a strategic industrial or intellectual advantage for this and future generations. It's being used to fight two wars, one of which is already a massive screw-up (because of a lack of focus) and where the other appears to be an open-ended commitment to protect petro-chemical interests. And it's also being used to make the investment banking community wealthier, which is hardly a charitable cause with which any sane man would want to be associated.

One can only assume that you don't have grandchildren or nephews or nieces: because your support of the 'borrow and spend' conspiracy (which is actually worse than 'tax and spend, because you accumulate an interest burden) is going to have to be repaid by future generations who will receive a declining industrial legacy from our generation.

In other words: less Federal support for education (if that were possible), less support for the elderly, less support for the vulnerable. Their generation will pay for the self-serving, 'me first' stupidity represented by people like you.

How's that for free speech?

May 05, 08 - 12:04 pm Comment from: MCCFR

And just to round off, isn't it amazing that people who have an issue investing in companies that leverage borrowing to invest in the future don't have a problem with governments that borrow to spend in the present-day.

Maybe Steve Jobs and Peter Oppenheimer should take over the Executive Branch: couldn't possibly be any worse than the situation you have now.

"Microsoft's... balance was more than $64 billion less than four years ago," Bishop reports.

I wonder how much of that $64 billion was spent on replacing chairs?

I think that this particular feedback has actually become something of a reflection of what is happening in the real world both with Microsoft and the Political leadership. Too much inward looking bickering and too little assessment of what is happening in the real and wider world. That inevitably leads to an inability to anticipate future trends, changes in the technological flow amongst others leading to a defensive strategy and lack of real innovation. That's indicative of being over the hill, be it Microsoft on the big scale or closer to home little old zuny. On the bright side, and thankfully, Apple appears to be avoiding that state rather well at present.

May 05, 08 - 07:36 pm Comment from: Zune Tang®

MCCFR, will you marry me?

Your potential. Our passion.™

May 07, 08 - 02:44 am Comment from: MCCFR

Zune Tang…

From what I can tell, that would require a major lifestyle choice from me and a major revision in your choice of computer platform.

How about we just stay friends?

The return of apple, a movie should be made about this. A++ for apple.

http://www.cashpotatos.com