

Apple to hold call March 19th to talk about its $97.6B in cash - tilt
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/03/18/apple-to-hold-call-march-19th-to-talk-about-what-its-decided-to-do-with-its-97-6b-in-cash/

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petercooper
I swear it's Apple's only choice, throw up your hands and raise your voice..
monorail!

~~~
jballanc
Well, maybe not a monorail, but I feel compelled once again to point out that
Apple could afford to build its own space station:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_space_station#Pro...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_space_station#Program_cost_in_United_States_dollars)

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InclinedPlane
Indeed! And that's at inflated government prices. If they just contracted with
SpaceX and Bigelow or others they could probably have a space station for a
tenth of that or less.

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apaprocki
Also, Apple does not hold $97.6B in cash _in the United States_. Over 50% of
their cash is overseas, which prevents them from using it in the United States
unless they take a huge haircut. So keep that in mind when theorizing on U.S.
centric uses of cash. Think global!

edit: Pretty graphs: [http://seekingalpha.com/article/318794-apple-s-foreign-
cash-...](http://seekingalpha.com/article/318794-apple-s-foreign-cash-hoard)

~~~
InclinedPlane
For the same reason Microsoft paid far, far too much money for Skype.

It's a bit of silliness that really ought to go away. Corporate taxes are
rather silly. Get rid of them and make capital gains count as regular income
for tax purposes.

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apaprocki
Say for a minute that Congress announced a moratorium on tax of repatriated
foreign funds. Do you believe this would be viewed as "evil" companies gaming
the system, or do you think that the huge influx of funds back into the U.S.
would actually help spur economic growth?

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jvm
The choices

> would be viewed as "evil" companies gaming the system

and

> huge influx of funds back into the U.S. would actually help spur economic
> growth

are in no way mutually exclusive.

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phil
I will eat my shoe if Apple buys Twitter.

Edit: In light of this post (<http://dcurt.is/100-billion-units-of-strategy>)
I'll add that I will also eat my shoe if Apple buys Netflix.

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mburns
Twitter wouldn't even put a significant dent into the nearly $100B in cash
they have. They'd still have ~$90 billion left over after buying out Twitter.

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AznHisoka
Then buy Facebook.

~~~
phil
That's more than they can afford, at least without substantial equity in the
deal.

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rdl
I'd like to see them take $10b and create a huge amount of free educational
content on the Internet. In the long run, this would drive enough sales to be
a worthwhile commercial decision for Apple, but it would also make the world a
much smarter, more peaceful, and more economically vibrant place.

Particularly, I'd like to see this content available in Spanish, Arabic,
various subcontinental languages, and Chinese. There's been some progress in
English, but not a whole lot in other languages.

Online (free) education is right where technologies usually are before apple
swoops in and makes the Apple version -- concept proven, but somewhat painful
user experience (no one could look at coursera, khan academy, mitx, etc. and
call them Apple-quality UX).

It would also be a great way to deploy part of the $70b or so which is trapped
outside the US. As much of the US portion of the cash as possible should be
returned to shareholders as a dividend (assuming the tax code doesn't change
in 2013 to change dividend taxation from 15% to 39.6+3.8%; if so, a buyback
makes much more sense, or just holding cash).

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zitterbewegung
Since when is Apple a charity and should do altruistic things? I don't see how
this will help apple and just seems like a way to spend money.

~~~
rdl
Increased sales of Apple devices -- either via explicit lock-in (delivery via
iTunes) or implicit (the iPad is the best consumption device, and maybe could
use trusted platform tech to do exams without cheating, etc.) Sell $149-$199
iPad 1 refurb units (or get the iPad 2 down to $250-300), and you'll end up
eventually owning the corporate workspace.

I am with you on not liking corporate philanthropy in general (profits should
be distributed to individuals, who can then make their own charity decisions;
I'd hate it if Apple donated to causes I dislike or find sub-optimal), except
in cases where the company can achieve both commercial and charity objectives
and do so better than anyone else. At the very least, it would have to provide
as much cash return to Apple as the blended mix of investments they currently
make.

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zitterbewegung
Apple is not in the business of making content. Apple is in the business of
making platforms for other people to put their content on.

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twiceaday
I know it's not feasible but I would love for them to become a telephone
service provider.

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brico
how many percent of customers would the other carriers lose if apple made the
iphones/ipads apple-carrier-only?

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ugh
How many percent of customers would Apple lose if Apple made the iPhones/iPads
Apple-carrier-only?

Not gonna happen.

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ma2rten
I would love if Apple would try to buy out one of major Hollywood studios or
music labels. For instance Disney's market cap is $80B and Steve Jobs also was
the largest shareholder of Disney. This could truly cause a revolution in
digital content delivery.

I know making films or music has nothing to do with their core business, but
if a search engine can buy Motorola. Why the hell not?

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ahi
Antitrust among other non-regulatory reasons.

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ma2rten
Okay. To buy a music label, would be problematic, but Apple is not really a
big deliver of movie content in terms of market share, yet, are they?

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apaprocki
I'd love to see Apple hack the system. There are a huge number of
institutional funds that are not allowed to invest in Apple due to regulation
that limits them to companies which provide a dividend. It would be awesome if
they announced a $0.01 dividend, simply so that they were now an investment
vehicle for all such funds.

edit: I could have been a bit more clear.. I was referring to funds such as
pension/mutual funds, not banks.

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Danieru
Are you suggesting that Apple is undervalued and therefore would be a great
longterm vehicle for your parent's pension?

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jballanc
Their P/E is currently lower than Amazon and Google, and just about even with
Oracle. Yeah, I think it's undervalued.

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ntkachov
I'm really hoping apple will try to become an ISP and revamp our
infrastructure.

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apaprocki
Given how dependent Apple's devices are on wi-fi, I'd love to see them invest
in building out real, full-coverage wi-fi in the top 10 U.S. cities available
for free to any Apple device.

Getting into the cellular game seems like a mistake, but investing in wi-fi
"towers" to side-step cellular companies seems like a win.

~~~
asdfpoiu
Or they can simply keep making money with LTE / G4 without any investments?

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apaprocki
Trust me, I agree with that more than anything. I don't want to see them spend
money on anything, really, if they don't need to. More wishful thinking.. :)

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wavephorm
Monthly dividend. End of story.

~~~
jballanc
I think a one-time dividend is much more likely. A recurring dividend sends
the wrong signal to Wall Street (we're no longer a growth company). A one-time
dividend says something more like, "Yeah, we have a crap load of cash...here,
have some."

~~~
wavephorm
A reasonable dividend (1% per yr) leaves more options open for a big
acquisition in the future if they want, eg Sony, or Comcast, or Netflix (they
can afford all three if they want). I highly doubt they'll blow the whole load
in one shot.

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jonnathanson
If they're going to make an acquisition of that magnitude, then they should
buy a controlling interest in Amazon.

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wavephorm
They can afford a monthly dividend for the next year, and still buy 100% of
Amazon.com.

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hevical
They're going to acquire every startup they possibly can and then turn into
what we all feared.... Skynet

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sliverstorm
Why would we fear that? Skynet was an unparalleled pinnacle of engineering
achievement.

~~~
pm90
...and almost killed off the human race

