Comments on: What should Apple do with all its extra cash?

The Mac maker, which operates with no debt, has $24.5 billion in cash on hand. Here are some things the company could do with that stack of dollar bills.

[shycelticwitch]

Most of us who use Macs do so not for the entertainment value, but for the stability of the OS, the longevity and compatibility of the hardware and most of all, the ability to run Windows if we really must. If I got into gaming I would buy a cheap PC and be done with it. But I need security and stability. Windows just doesn't have it.

I hope Apple stays away from gaming, after all they are the guys who are supposed to be SERIOUS about technology, and NOT the ones who are more interested in the bottom line.

[Apacheking]

Shy witch...Apple is no more secure than Windows....the black hats simply think its too ameurish to hack apple..The holes that are there is not wide for the community to publish. In fact Apple is a lot more vulnerable as the conifig that is used has been hacked but not been exposed. So you could be compromised but not know it for a long time.

Come on...Apple is a cute box made for entertainment...

[aztec92154]

How about creating their own Music Label?

[johnkclark]

One thing Apple could do with chump change compared with all the cash they have is buy Wolfram research, then they could include the wonderful program ?Mathematica? free with every Apple computer, meanwhile Windows users would have to continue to pay $2500 for it. That move would forever cement the education market to Apple, and after just a few years cement the engineering and scientific market too, to say nothing of the prestige market.

Apple could make it virtually part of the operating system, then third parties could write programs that freely make use of Mathematica?s vast power. Listen to me Apple, it would be money well spent!

John K Clark

[Apacheking]

Apple and Free...hmmm are you on the right thread? I think u should move to the ubuntu section....

[gracep9]

I think Apple should save at least half of it as an economic safeguard. The rest should be used to invest....

One company Apple needs to snatch up is GM... Apple could buy GM for about $3.3B which is simply chump change compared to their reserves. Pour another 3-5 B into it to completely revamp the company and start making the coolest, most hi-tech, eco-friendly cars on the market; along with discontinuing SUV's and trucks. Apple is the one company that could revolutionize the US auto industry.

I'd love to see the GM designers to just try to put one of those ugly 29mpg designs past Steve Jobs... He'd tell them it's a piece of crap, do it again; and he'd keep doing that until they had a really nice car that gets minimum of 75mpg(series electric hybrid). I mean come on, if aptera can get 300mpg with a 2+1 seater, then GM should be able to pull of at least 75mpg from a sedan.

Yes, Apple.... Buy GM and give us an American car company that gets it, appeals to mass market, and cars that don't loose 10% of their value as soon as they leave the car lot.

[Ramon366]

A wild and crazy thought: Use some of the money to establish some of its manufacturing in the USA, and create a job-training strategy, along with a scholarship program. I know - I know; I'm nuts.

[ofmyony]

Apple is becoming a distribution company and I think it is buy accident. Itunes was never developed as a store but a music player. Itunes is the real success story it is probably bigger than Windows and OS10 combined it is a monster and just getting bigger.

It is amazing how little attention Itunes gets but if Itunes goes bad so does Apple. Make Itunes better! this has to be Apple's top priority. If Itunes has problems Apple will never be the same. Itunes has to be perfect no question!

[z3r0_f4ct0r]

Apple should strengthen its core markets. The should acquire Telestream, ~sedna GmbH, and possibly Autonomy Virage in one swoop for the video media/encoding side.

Yahoo also looks attractive in order to acquire Zimbra and make headway into the enterprise with a strong competitor to Exchange and to help expand MobileMe and anything in the "Cloud".

Sun is also a solid choice mainly for Solaris and MySQL on the server end and hardware wise they can get back into storage and give the P.A. Semi team something to do with the Sparc CPU.

[z3r0_f4ct0r]

While they're at it get back in storage and acquire Active Storage Inc if they cant get Sun

Its basically the XRaid team but better: http://www.getactivestorage.com/software.php

[TMY714]

Obviously you didn't do your research about going into the gaming industry. It takes an enormous amount of resource to be considered a contender in the gamiling industry. Apple has always been behind in the hardware department, their pricing scheme need a major overhaul (Apple products are far overpriced), they don't have anything in place for online gaming, and they don't even have a dept to make first party gaming software. If Apple was to start now, it'll be another 4 years before they'll start annoucing their new baby.

[Apacheking]

E reader and online books. With Kindle being the only big player here ( Sony is a joke), Apple coul use its E2E market to foray into books.

Amazon has anlready made things easy with digital formating but the Kindle form factir sux...Imagine a larger version of Ipod that could be a reader and a gaming device ( Ok PC games ported to the new reader/ Heandheld). With the Intel chip that would be a cinch.

[benjwah]

Don, didn't you get fired from the site you were working for the last time you gave Apple advice? If you really knew what was best for Apple, you'd have 24 billion dollars cash-in-hand too.
Friggin' armchair quarterbacks...

[Perry_Clease]

"by Apacheking October 27, 2008 4:32 PM PDT
Shy witch...Apple is no more secure than Windows....the black hats simply think its too ameurish to hack apple..The holes that are there is not wide for the community to publish. In fact Apple is a lot more vulnerable as the conifig that is used has been hacked but not been exposed. So you could be compromised but not know it for a long time.

Come on...Apple is a cute box made for entertainment..."

Another myth.

[ddanckaert]

or... Maybe, just continue doing what Apple has been doing which generated this enormous pile of cash.

Don ignored the fact that video games and other business segments are crowded and enormously expensive areas to enter and grow market share. A much better approach would be to incrementally expand Apples successful areas and tinker with new ones.

For example, rather than develop a video game console, enable the Apple TV to handle "popcap-like" games (e.g., bejeweled, peggle, zuma, etc) with a better remote.

Viva la Mac Mini (LOL)!

[redagg]

I don't see apple joining the gaming business. EA(sony) Activisionblizzard nintendo and microsoft have edged out all the competition except take two.
Macbooks are overpriced with inferior hardware (no new intel processors), get a vaio widescreen and see the future of laptop entertainment. They are the only value buy from a major distributor. Jobs thinks HDMI will die out...right.

Jobs has been making unintentional blunders this year with lackluster product releases and overseas expansions.

Only thing i could see them doing with the money is making apple business servers.
Or they could add the right click function! =)

[kwiswall]

I think Apple should build a man-maid island in a shape of an apple's logo! Or better yet, create its own country; I?d be the first one on the boat to sail to this "Apple-topi!"

Yeah, that would be sweet!!


>.<

[kelmon]

Expansion into new and difficult markets doesn't sound like a good idea given the risks involved, although it is working out well enough for the iPhone. I'd suggest using some of the money to invest more into the existing product lines. It has certainly felt over recent years that Apple didn't have the resources to do everything that it wanted to so investing in people during a difficult time should benefit all.

[Seaspray0]

Microsoft has bought other tech companies. And when they did, everyone claimed microsoft had no innovation and had to get it from others. So if apple does use the cash to buy other companies, I suppose I'll get to make the same claim about them? That would depend. If they bought now, while stock prices are deflated, they could pick up some bargains.

[jumpjetta]

Buy Adobe!

[ifiredmyboss.com]

Buy Netflix and Tivo and roll them into Apple TV.
Game systems are a money black hole. Has MS even made money on the Xbox yet??

Cash is KING!!