9 ms·

Apple Should Buy Sony

48 points by kawera 9y ago

nobodyorother 9y ago
Does Apple acquire? It'd be difficult/weird for them to start integrating/selling Android devices/ecosystem, which feels like they'd be putting their feet up for a few years while Google continued advancing. It feels antithetical to their business model.
- WillPostForFood 9y ago
  They do, but typically in a more focused way (e.g., Beats). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Apple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio... Sony would be a weird one.
readhn 9y ago
it would be a huge mess. Somehow integrating Sony into apple ecosystem. Its cheaper just to buy what you need from them.
kristianc 9y ago
> “Future operating results depend upon the Company’s ability to obtain components in sufficient quantities on commercially reasonable terms.” I can see how acquiring Sony would perhaps solve the "commercially reasonable terms" part of this equation, though no doubt Apple has quite a lot of leverage here already as the largest buyer of such sensors in the world, but how would it solve their ability to obtain components, especially on 1M per day iPhone scale? That's surely always going to be dependent on outside factors - mining, shipping, freight etc? For all the effort it would take to integrate a slow growth Japanese business with a huge cultural difference, it doesn't at all seem worth it.
X-Istence 9y ago
Something in the article that made me go: "Wait, what?" Apple is paying 17% average tax rate, and is in red, yet Coca-Cola does the same, yet is in green. What gives?
- adamnemecek 9y ago
  Apple presumably invests more.
- jasonlotito 9y ago
  The image in the article you are referring to is not from the article. Rather, it's from L2Inc. Why they have them in? I don't know, but at a quick glance, the video this was sourced from was specifically talking about those bottom 4 companies.
- eridius 9y ago
  I noticed that too. The graphic is also missing all context, like what countries the companies are paying taxes in, which matters because different countries have different tax rates, and just because one company is paying more taxes than another doesn't mean it's doing any more to "pay [its] fair share to the national economies", it might just mean that it has more revenue in countries with higher tax rates.
- zeep 9y ago
  maybe it's 16.5% VS 17.4%?
lechiffre10 9y ago
Highly doubt a Japanese company would allow a takeover from an American one.
- Pxtl 9y ago
  Yes. If that was possible, I'd have said Google should acquire Sony instead.
  - oneplane 9y ago
    For some reason that would make more sense to me than Apple buying Sony. Then again, Apple getting Beats/DrDre was a weird one for me too, so what do I know... ;-)
    - Pxtl 9y ago
      Sony has hardware and content, Google has software and OSs. Put them together and you've got an Apple's worth of end-to-end integration. Well, plus a gigantic media wing that would probably end up getting in the way. Imagine a merger between the Playstation and Android/AndroidTV ecosystems. Sony's content all getting prime space on Android's Play Store. "The Sony Store" becoming Google's answer to the Apple Store..
- sosborn 9y ago
  Yeah, something like that would never happen. https://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwans-foxconn-completes-deal-to-acquire-sharp-1470994207 https://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwans-foxconn-completes-deal-...
remir 9y ago
Apple is already making their own SoC. Could they also make their own ISP as well? I realize Sony is the top player here, but this is Apple we're talking about and they have boatloads of cash and competent engineers.
- nkristoffersen 9y ago
  And the SoC skills came from an acquisition. https://www.extremetech.com/computing/142553-apple-acquires-ti-staff-moves-deeper-into-the-world-of-socs https://www.extremetech.com/computing/142553-apple-acquires-...
bllguo 9y ago
This is very simplistic. There is a lot more to consider in potential M&A than just raw numbers. Cultural fit, how it changes relationships with other suppliers, laws and regulations, management, etc. I'm not persuaded the current Apple-Sony relationship is such that a drastic move like an acquisition is necessary..
cridenour 9y ago
Nintendo's Wii? Why are we comparing a 2013 console to one released in 2006?
chaostheory 9y ago
To this day, I don't understand why Apple didn't buy Nest instead of Beats. I still don't understand the Beats acquisition.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
  I’m guessing given Apple’s previous somewhat close relationship with Honeywell (they already make several HomeKit enabled devices) sort of precludes the need to bring that sort of thing in house for now.
- sailfast 9y ago
  They were trying to get Dre and Iovine in the door to help with Apple Music? In addition they got a buzzy hardware line of headphones that would compliment their existing stock stuff for retail?
- gordeh 9y ago
  Nest had a huge investment from google already, so I doubt they were keen to sell to Apple. Add to that Tony Fadell's history with Apple may have also made that deal tricky. Given the shocking state of nest these days I think Apple dodged a bullet on that too.
- infinityplus1 9y ago
  Think about the synergies, Beats produces over-priced mediocre quality headphones with big marketing dollars spent on celebrity endorsements. Their brand had pretty good value to earn high profits which Apple must have found a good deal.
- pwinnski 9y ago
  All of Apple Music, their entire relationship with the music industry, is the result of the Beats acquisition. They also ended up with some headphones which are popular with a young crowd, but primarily it seems like they wanted the core of Apple Music.
IBM 9y ago
Why buy any company when poaching is working just fine? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-21/apple-s-global-web-of-r-d-labs-doubles-as-poaching-operation https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-21/apple-s-g...
- ryandrake 9y ago
  Ughh, I hate when articles (and even HNers) use this offensive term. The word "poaching" implies that we tech workers are property like fish and wild game, owned by our corporate lords, who are trying to prevent others from "stealing" their property. Sorry, but as far as employment goes, we have agency and free will to come and go as makes the best sense for our own careers. Our relationships with our employers have nothing to do with ownership of our person--I am not being "stolen" if I deliberately choose to change jobs.
  - nashashmi 9y ago
    You are being stolen if someone makes you an unsolicited offer you cannot refuse.
nextstep 9y ago
Here's a great counterpoint to corporate consolidation in general: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00wQYmvfhn4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00wQYmvfhn4
bitmapbrother 9y ago
>To put things in perspective, with that amount of money, Apple could acquire General Electric, Samsung or Royal Dutch Shell. Samsung has a market cap of around 250 Billion USD. To suggest that Apple could even afford to purchase Samsung is naive.
- allwein 9y ago
  And the article points out that Apple currently has 262 Billion USD in cash. I don't see anything naive there.
  - holydude 9y ago
    And the article is wrong. Samsung has revenue of 300bn and totals assets of 600bn. Why would they sell for so little as 262bn ? Or were we talking just about Samsung Electronics ?
    - allwein 9y ago
      The article didn't say anything about Samsung's numbers. I was replying to bitmapbrother who quoted a value of 250bn. In that case, I didn't understand how 262bn>250bn was naive. If the numbers are actually 300bn and 600bn, that's a different story.
  - bitmapbrother 9y ago
    I don't believe you fully understand the economics of acquiring companies.
    - allwein 9y ago
      No, I don't, which is why I posted my comment. To me, if Apple has the same amount of money as Samsung is worth, then it makes sense that they could buy them. But your comment makes it sound like that's an absurd notion.
      - bitmapbrother 9y ago
oneplane 9y ago
I highly doubt that would work out for either of them.
jasode 9y ago
There are several angles to analyze this... 1) Based on previous Apple acquisitions[1], acquiring a multibillion dollar conglomerate like Sony really hasn't been part of Apple's playbook. Things could change of course, (Tim Cook philosophy different from Steve Jobs, etc). If Apple somehow did buy Sony, they'd probably end up doing a carve outs for the pieces they wanted (like Google did with Motorola.) >Cornering the imaging sensor supply. The image sensor is a critical component of the iPhone. 2) Buying Sony to get the image sensor and exclude everyone else also seems very un-Apple like. Apple seems to enjoy being a supply-chain orchestrator and keeping hardware manufacturers at "arms length" via contracts instead of owning complicated fabrication facilities. E.g. Apple didn't seriously entertain buying Corning to "own the Gorilla Glass facility"; if other smartphones got Gorilla glass, no big deal. What's the convincing business case for Apple to prefer acquiring Sony instead of just negotiating a multibillion dollar supply contract? >Acquiring Sony would give Apple a huge competitive advantage: access to the most advanced chips of the industry, ahead of its smartphone competitors. Given the camera's importance to the iPhone, this is a strong competitive argument against Samsung’s Galaxy or Google’s Pixel. 3) The smartphone camera's quality being perceived as #1 may not even be strategically important to Apple. In the last ten years from 2007 until now, was Apple iPhone ever #1 in camera quality? It always seemed like Samsung/Lumia/Google had the better cameras and it never seemed to bother Apple. Maybe the journalist is overemphasizing the camera's importance? (Unless future cameras' sensor qualities are more integral to upcoming "virtual reality" apps and Sony has secret sauce for that scenario that nobody else has.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Apple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...
- pacaro 9y ago
  The quality issue is really interesting. I used to have the Lumia with the 40MP camera. The image quality was, in general, significantly better, and for low light photography (for example a baby sleeping in a room with the drapes closed) exceptionally better. But. And there's always a but. Apple seems to have payed way more attention to the user experience of taking a picture, so while I could adjust everything on the Lumia, and potentially get a better picture, just taking a snap was so unbelievably slow, the lag between clicking and the image being taken was slow, and the time between taking pictures was slow, so my wife with an equivalent generation iPhone could take 10-20 images in the time it took me to take one. Quality has to be understood in the context of the whole experience, not just the final image. I still keep the Lumia charged, years later, because there are times when it makes a decent digital camera... YMMV
tomc1985 9y ago
Sony's practically the only option if you want elegant, high-quality tech without the Apple logo :/
- tootie 9y ago
  Samsung.
  - tomc1985 9y ago
    You're kidding right? Half the garbage I've seen has a Samsung logo stamped on it (if not LG)
  - wil421 9y ago
    Nothing about Samsung products are high quality. I’ve owned Phones, Tablets, microwaves, dishwashers and other appliances. The quality has been middle of the road to crap across the board. Samsung jumps into new features just to jump in, doesn’t matter if they work reliably or not.
torgoguys 9y ago
This got me wondering, who else should Apple buy according to submissions to HN? A quick search [1] reveals: "Hollywood," Twitter, Tesla, "big companies," Yahoo, Netflix, Twitter (again), "a university," Tesla (again), Amazon, Disney, Yahoo (again), Facebook, Tesla (third time), "TV networks," Tesla (4th time), Nokia, foursquare, Skype, Infineon, Netflix (again). I attempted to de-dupe things by eyeballing it (e.g., the multiple nintendo ones, etc.) but could have made missed something. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22apple%20should%20buy%22&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22apple%20should%20buy%22&sor...
- raldi 9y ago
  Free karma to anyone who wants to add those up and see if Apple actually has the cash to do it.
  - mburns 9y ago
    I'll bite. Apple's cash on hand in Q3 was $261.5B. Company Market Cap ($/Billion) ------- ---------------------- Twitter 12.6 Tesla 57 Netflix 76.5 Foursquare 0.7 Nokia 34 Time Warner 85 ('tv network', 'hollywood', with some additional overhead) Totals to $265.8B, just a hair over our imaginary budget if they did a 100% buyout. Presumably, Apple would sell off parts of Time Warner that weren't The CW, HBO, Warner Bros. What Apple would have had to pay for Yahoo would have varied quite a bit(+/- $40B?). Nintendo($53B) and Disney ($154B) are a bit further of a stretch. Amazon($460B)/Facebook($492B) are more than half the size of Apple, effectively out of reach.
    - emn13 9y ago
      They'd probably have to pay taxes to repatriate that cash to buy those firms, however, and buying a firm has costs of its own (not just overheads, but you obviously need to pay more than the market cap usually). So this amount is well beyond reach (using only that 260B cash on hand, and wtf that's an unimaginable amount).
santoshalper 9y ago
This assumes that a large Japanese conglomerate would agree to (and be allowed to) be purchased by a large US corporation. While Sony is not quite as connected to Japan as Samsung is to South Korea, it would still be a major blow to Japanese national pride and autonomy.
holydude 9y ago
Sony ? I do not think so. Sony Entertainment ? Very likely! Apple knows that devices and software on their own have no value (for your average joe customer). It's the content that matters and in my humble opinion Apple will aim at companies like Netflix,Spotify etc first before acquiring tech companies.
zitterbewegung 9y ago
If Apple would buy anyone it would be a flash memory supplier. Which they are almost doing (Apple-Bain Consortum purchase for $18 billion). There was a recent price hike on their store on larger flash memory sizes. See http://news.softpedia.com/news/apple-bain-consortium-acquires-toshiba-flash-memory-unit-for-18-billion-517850.shtml http://news.softpedia.com/news/apple-bain-consortium-acquire... Sony doesn't make sense. Movies catalog and Playstation Ecosystem are either expensive or Apple doesn't want to go into content production they want to do distribution. Image sensors are still competitive with other phones if not better.
- emn13 9y ago
  Apple has used Sony sensors repeatedly. I can't remember an iphone without one, and some googling shows that the past three generations (6, 7, 8) have used sony sensors. If anything, flash is a poor bet for apple. Sure, there's a shortage now, but there are several suppliers to choose from; and if anything the high prices hurt low-end supplies more than apple. The status quo may not be ideal, but it's relatively benign. And the flash market has had quite a few ups and downs; buying a supplier risks being left with a dud if the market crashes. Sony sensors have competitors; but unlike flash they're not quite as interchangable; and sony's tech seems to be not just the most predominant, but also the best in the business. Keeping the best stuff for itself could well be an actual advantage for apple, unlike with flash. Not that I'm saying it makes sense, but it makes more sense than buying a flash producer.
abrowne 9y ago
No! They're just about the only source for a small but not low-end Android phone these days.
coding123 9y ago
The movie business and playstation lines alone would make sense for Apple. Most other product lines would be liquidated. The playstation technical employees would probably not have any job changes. I would suspect the codebase of Playstation would remain the same, except for supporting Swift as a language on the platform. I'm not sure how long the Apple and Playstation stores would take to be integrated, but they would probably make that happen. Beyond that there could be many opportunities to integrate apple hardware with your playstation account.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- pentae 9y ago
  I have always said Apple should buy Nintendo. Much better fit, much better synergy. Imagine what a competitive advantage they would have with Nintendo exclusives being brought to iPhone? - The Nintendo switch is already basically an iPad in a dock, Apple could release a Nintendo dock for iPad that comes with game controllers. The iPad probably has a better GPU too.. $700 buying you an iPad as well as a Nintendo gaming device with better graphics power would be an incredible value proposition. The companies share a similar culture - user experience, family friendly and a cult like following. Would be super interesting as long as they didnt kill Nintendo.
alsetmusic 9y ago
Reason 3 of the article focuses on the PlayStation ecosystem. This fails to address the PlayStation software. macOS and iOS share a common architecture. TvOS and watchOS are derived from iOS. Aside from patents, Apple would have little use in acquiring the PlayStation OS because it wouldn’t be possible to integrate without considerable rewriting (I can’t imagine Apple maintaining it separately). What is more likely, given Apple’s actions in the past, is iterative development of game technology atop Apple’s existing technology. Acquiring the PlayStation software would not be strategically useful.
- zie 9y ago
  Playstation is based on FreeBSD, and Apple's OS also comes from BSD, apple's UNIX underpinnings are basically FreeBSD userland. I'm sure there is a lot of technical gotcha's here, but they are not at complete technical odds at an OS level, like say Apple buying Microsoft would be(which would just be a disaster for everyone).
odiroot 9y ago
Oh god please no. Sony are my favourite Android phones. I don't want to see them dumbed down and "artistically designed".
- emn13 9y ago
  Glass backs. Blech.
  - xaqfox 9y ago
    There is not a glass back on their newest, XZ Premium. Still no removable battery, though, it does still have a microSD slot.
    - emn13 9y ago
      That's great news! I used to buy the old z[123] compact series, but that glass back... I've got kids and it just doesn't work anymore. A phone needs to have some modicum of robustness to be useful. The ancient, crappy looking samsung s4 I now use is sadly functionally superior to the sony and apple high-end phones, simply because it doesn't shatter when dropped - instead, the plastic back cracks open (again), and maybe the battery get's detached. It's like an unintentional airbag. And it's not like that's a really robust phone either; pre-smartphone phones simply outclassed today's stuff. Seriously, high end phones these days are a joke. They're not even trying. What the beep happened?
  - odiroot 9y ago
    The whole Xperia X* series has plastic backs. Also, not like iPhone didn't start with it.
    - emn13 9y ago
      Yeah, they're not the only ones with that misfeature. I gave up on the series for this reason (not joking!) - but now I hear the xz premium doesn't have em anymore, so hey, maybe I'll switch back again. Although I'm a little worried reading the spec sheet. Maybe this is the first ever phone with a 4k display that actually works, but I'm skeptical. Most are simply wasteful battery hogs that simply cost extra money to be worse.
_ph_ 9y ago
Besides the funny fact that many years ago people would blog that Sony should buy Apple, I don't think this is a good idea. In general, I don't think anything good comes out of a large company buying another large company. We get less variety and competition. Sony once was, what Apple is now, a company which would create very unique and beautiful pieces of technology. Their advertising slogan "It is not a trick, it is a Sony" really held true - they would come up with very innovative and nicely designed things. But while a shadow of its past, the old Sony is not gone. Their camera division currently is making the best sensors on the market and their A7 mirrorless line is very popular for a good reason. Being bought by Apple would probably destroy all of this. Apple buying high-tech startups and small companies completely makes sense. They cannot compete with the industry giants, so being bought means that their technology comes to market faster. But for an established company with their very own line of products it would possibly mean destruction as Apple most likely wouldn't allow them to keep their own product lines.
- emn13 9y ago
  Oh, I don't think there's any doubt it would be terrible for consumers if apple bought Sony. But as I read it, the article suggests it would be good for Apple to buy Sony. And that's a little more plausible. Although history does seem to suggest that such a merger would destroy lots of good bits of Sony, as you point out, which wouldn't just be a shame, but also a rather expensive shame.
hylianwarrior 9y ago
Mergers and consolidation do _not_ help anything. We need _more_ competition, not less. Large corporations are not focused on innovation, which Apple usually pursues
hndamien 9y ago
How about Bragi...

48 points by kawera 9y ago

Does Apple acquire? It'd be difficult/weird for them to start integrating/selling Android devices/ecosystem, which feels like they'd be putting their feet up for a few years while Google continued advancing. It feels antithetical to their business model.

WillPostForFood 9y ago
They do, but typically in a more focused way (e.g., Beats). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Apple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio... Sony would be a weird one.

readhn 9y ago

it would be a huge mess. Somehow integrating Sony into apple ecosystem. Its cheaper just to buy what you need from them.

kristianc 9y ago

> “Future operating results depend upon the Company’s ability to obtain components in sufficient quantities on commercially reasonable terms.” I can see how acquiring Sony would perhaps solve the "commercially reasonable terms" part of this equation, though no doubt Apple has quite a lot of leverage here already as the largest buyer of such sensors in the world, but how would it solve their ability to obtain components, especially on 1M per day iPhone scale? That's surely always going to be dependent on outside factors - mining, shipping, freight etc? For all the effort it would take to integrate a slow growth Japanese business with a huge cultural difference, it doesn't at all seem worth it.

X-Istence 9y ago

Something in the article that made me go: "Wait, what?" Apple is paying 17% average tax rate, and is in red, yet Coca-Cola does the same, yet is in green. What gives?

adamnemecek 9y ago
Apple presumably invests more.
jasonlotito 9y ago
The image in the article you are referring to is not from the article. Rather, it's from L2Inc. Why they have them in? I don't know, but at a quick glance, the video this was sourced from was specifically talking about those bottom 4 companies.
eridius 9y ago
I noticed that too. The graphic is also missing all context, like what countries the companies are paying taxes in, which matters because different countries have different tax rates, and just because one company is paying more taxes than another doesn't mean it's doing any more to "pay [its] fair share to the national economies", it might just mean that it has more revenue in countries with higher tax rates.
zeep 9y ago
maybe it's 16.5% VS 17.4%?

lechiffre10 9y ago

Highly doubt a Japanese company would allow a takeover from an American one.

Pxtl 9y ago
Yes. If that was possible, I'd have said Google should acquire Sony instead.
- oneplane 9y ago
  For some reason that would make more sense to me than Apple buying Sony. Then again, Apple getting Beats/DrDre was a weird one for me too, so what do I know... ;-)
  - Pxtl 9y ago
    Sony has hardware and content, Google has software and OSs. Put them together and you've got an Apple's worth of end-to-end integration. Well, plus a gigantic media wing that would probably end up getting in the way. Imagine a merger between the Playstation and Android/AndroidTV ecosystems. Sony's content all getting prime space on Android's Play Store. "The Sony Store" becoming Google's answer to the Apple Store..
sosborn 9y ago
Yeah, something like that would never happen. https://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwans-foxconn-completes-deal-to-acquire-sharp-1470994207 https://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwans-foxconn-completes-deal-...

remir 9y ago

Apple is already making their own SoC. Could they also make their own ISP as well? I realize Sony is the top player here, but this is Apple we're talking about and they have boatloads of cash and competent engineers.

nkristoffersen 9y ago
And the SoC skills came from an acquisition. https://www.extremetech.com/computing/142553-apple-acquires-ti-staff-moves-deeper-into-the-world-of-socs https://www.extremetech.com/computing/142553-apple-acquires-...

bllguo 9y ago

This is very simplistic. There is a lot more to consider in potential M&A than just raw numbers. Cultural fit, how it changes relationships with other suppliers, laws and regulations, management, etc. I'm not persuaded the current Apple-Sony relationship is such that a drastic move like an acquisition is necessary..

cridenour 9y ago

Nintendo's Wii? Why are we comparing a 2013 console to one released in 2006?

chaostheory 9y ago

To this day, I don't understand why Apple didn't buy Nest instead of Beats. I still don't understand the Beats acquisition.

SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
I’m guessing given Apple’s previous somewhat close relationship with Honeywell (they already make several HomeKit enabled devices) sort of precludes the need to bring that sort of thing in house for now.
sailfast 9y ago
They were trying to get Dre and Iovine in the door to help with Apple Music? In addition they got a buzzy hardware line of headphones that would compliment their existing stock stuff for retail?
gordeh 9y ago
Nest had a huge investment from google already, so I doubt they were keen to sell to Apple. Add to that Tony Fadell's history with Apple may have also made that deal tricky. Given the shocking state of nest these days I think Apple dodged a bullet on that too.
infinityplus1 9y ago
Think about the synergies, Beats produces over-priced mediocre quality headphones with big marketing dollars spent on celebrity endorsements. Their brand had pretty good value to earn high profits which Apple must have found a good deal.
pwinnski 9y ago
All of Apple Music, their entire relationship with the music industry, is the result of the Beats acquisition. They also ended up with some headphones which are popular with a young crowd, but primarily it seems like they wanted the core of Apple Music.

IBM 9y ago

Why buy any company when poaching is working just fine? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-21/apple-s-global-web-of-r-d-labs-doubles-as-poaching-operation https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-21/apple-s-g...

ryandrake 9y ago
Ughh, I hate when articles (and even HNers) use this offensive term. The word "poaching" implies that we tech workers are property like fish and wild game, owned by our corporate lords, who are trying to prevent others from "stealing" their property. Sorry, but as far as employment goes, we have agency and free will to come and go as makes the best sense for our own careers. Our relationships with our employers have nothing to do with ownership of our person--I am not being "stolen" if I deliberately choose to change jobs.
- nashashmi 9y ago
  You are being stolen if someone makes you an unsolicited offer you cannot refuse.

nextstep 9y ago

Here's a great counterpoint to corporate consolidation in general: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00wQYmvfhn4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00wQYmvfhn4

bitmapbrother 9y ago

>To put things in perspective, with that amount of money, Apple could acquire General Electric, Samsung or Royal Dutch Shell. Samsung has a market cap of around 250 Billion USD. To suggest that Apple could even afford to purchase Samsung is naive.

allwein 9y ago
And the article points out that Apple currently has 262 Billion USD in cash. I don't see anything naive there.
- holydude 9y ago
  And the article is wrong. Samsung has revenue of 300bn and totals assets of 600bn. Why would they sell for so little as 262bn ? Or were we talking just about Samsung Electronics ?
  - allwein 9y ago
    The article didn't say anything about Samsung's numbers. I was replying to bitmapbrother who quoted a value of 250bn. In that case, I didn't understand how 262bn>250bn was naive. If the numbers are actually 300bn and 600bn, that's a different story.
- bitmapbrother 9y ago
  I don't believe you fully understand the economics of acquiring companies.
  - allwein 9y ago
    No, I don't, which is why I posted my comment. To me, if Apple has the same amount of money as Samsung is worth, then it makes sense that they could buy them. But your comment makes it sound like that's an absurd notion.
    - bitmapbrother 9y ago

oneplane 9y ago

I highly doubt that would work out for either of them.

jasode 9y ago

There are several angles to analyze this... 1) Based on previous Apple acquisitions[1], acquiring a multibillion dollar conglomerate like Sony really hasn't been part of Apple's playbook. Things could change of course, (Tim Cook philosophy different from Steve Jobs, etc). If Apple somehow did buy Sony, they'd probably end up doing a carve outs for the pieces they wanted (like Google did with Motorola.) >Cornering the imaging sensor supply. The image sensor is a critical component of the iPhone. 2) Buying Sony to get the image sensor and exclude everyone else also seems very un-Apple like. Apple seems to enjoy being a supply-chain orchestrator and keeping hardware manufacturers at "arms length" via contracts instead of owning complicated fabrication facilities. E.g. Apple didn't seriously entertain buying Corning to "own the Gorilla Glass facility"; if other smartphones got Gorilla glass, no big deal. What's the convincing business case for Apple to prefer acquiring Sony instead of just negotiating a multibillion dollar supply contract? >Acquiring Sony would give Apple a huge competitive advantage: access to the most advanced chips of the industry, ahead of its smartphone competitors. Given the camera's importance to the iPhone, this is a strong competitive argument against Samsung’s Galaxy or Google’s Pixel. 3) The smartphone camera's quality being perceived as #1 may not even be strategically important to Apple. In the last ten years from 2007 until now, was Apple iPhone ever #1 in camera quality? It always seemed like Samsung/Lumia/Google had the better cameras and it never seemed to bother Apple. Maybe the journalist is overemphasizing the camera's importance? (Unless future cameras' sensor qualities are more integral to upcoming "virtual reality" apps and Sony has secret sauce for that scenario that nobody else has.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Apple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...

pacaro 9y ago
The quality issue is really interesting. I used to have the Lumia with the 40MP camera. The image quality was, in general, significantly better, and for low light photography (for example a baby sleeping in a room with the drapes closed) exceptionally better. But. And there's always a but. Apple seems to have payed way more attention to the user experience of taking a picture, so while I could adjust everything on the Lumia, and potentially get a better picture, just taking a snap was so unbelievably slow, the lag between clicking and the image being taken was slow, and the time between taking pictures was slow, so my wife with an equivalent generation iPhone could take 10-20 images in the time it took me to take one. Quality has to be understood in the context of the whole experience, not just the final image. I still keep the Lumia charged, years later, because there are times when it makes a decent digital camera... YMMV

tomc1985 9y ago

Sony's practically the only option if you want elegant, high-quality tech without the Apple logo :/

tootie 9y ago
Samsung.
- tomc1985 9y ago
  You're kidding right? Half the garbage I've seen has a Samsung logo stamped on it (if not LG)
- wil421 9y ago
  Nothing about Samsung products are high quality. I’ve owned Phones, Tablets, microwaves, dishwashers and other appliances. The quality has been middle of the road to crap across the board. Samsung jumps into new features just to jump in, doesn’t matter if they work reliably or not.

torgoguys 9y ago

This got me wondering, who else should Apple buy according to submissions to HN? A quick search [1] reveals: "Hollywood," Twitter, Tesla, "big companies," Yahoo, Netflix, Twitter (again), "a university," Tesla (again), Amazon, Disney, Yahoo (again), Facebook, Tesla (third time), "TV networks," Tesla (4th time), Nokia, foursquare, Skype, Infineon, Netflix (again). I attempted to de-dupe things by eyeballing it (e.g., the multiple nintendo ones, etc.) but could have made missed something. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22apple%20should%20buy%22&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22apple%20should%20buy%22&sor...

raldi 9y ago
Free karma to anyone who wants to add those up and see if Apple actually has the cash to do it.
- mburns 9y ago
  I'll bite. Apple's cash on hand in Q3 was $261.5B. Company Market Cap ($/Billion) ------- ---------------------- Twitter 12.6 Tesla 57 Netflix 76.5 Foursquare 0.7 Nokia 34 Time Warner 85 ('tv network', 'hollywood', with some additional overhead) Totals to $265.8B, just a hair over our imaginary budget if they did a 100% buyout. Presumably, Apple would sell off parts of Time Warner that weren't The CW, HBO, Warner Bros. What Apple would have had to pay for Yahoo would have varied quite a bit(+/- $40B?). Nintendo($53B) and Disney ($154B) are a bit further of a stretch. Amazon($460B)/Facebook($492B) are more than half the size of Apple, effectively out of reach.
  - emn13 9y ago
    They'd probably have to pay taxes to repatriate that cash to buy those firms, however, and buying a firm has costs of its own (not just overheads, but you obviously need to pay more than the market cap usually). So this amount is well beyond reach (using only that 260B cash on hand, and wtf that's an unimaginable amount).

santoshalper 9y ago

This assumes that a large Japanese conglomerate would agree to (and be allowed to) be purchased by a large US corporation. While Sony is not quite as connected to Japan as Samsung is to South Korea, it would still be a major blow to Japanese national pride and autonomy.

holydude 9y ago

Sony ? I do not think so. Sony Entertainment ? Very likely! Apple knows that devices and software on their own have no value (for your average joe customer). It's the content that matters and in my humble opinion Apple will aim at companies like Netflix,Spotify etc first before acquiring tech companies.

zitterbewegung 9y ago

If Apple would buy anyone it would be a flash memory supplier. Which they are almost doing (Apple-Bain Consortum purchase for $18 billion). There was a recent price hike on their store on larger flash memory sizes. See http://news.softpedia.com/news/apple-bain-consortium-acquires-toshiba-flash-memory-unit-for-18-billion-517850.shtml http://news.softpedia.com/news/apple-bain-consortium-acquire... Sony doesn't make sense. Movies catalog and Playstation Ecosystem are either expensive or Apple doesn't want to go into content production they want to do distribution. Image sensors are still competitive with other phones if not better.

emn13 9y ago
Apple has used Sony sensors repeatedly. I can't remember an iphone without one, and some googling shows that the past three generations (6, 7, 8) have used sony sensors. If anything, flash is a poor bet for apple. Sure, there's a shortage now, but there are several suppliers to choose from; and if anything the high prices hurt low-end supplies more than apple. The status quo may not be ideal, but it's relatively benign. And the flash market has had quite a few ups and downs; buying a supplier risks being left with a dud if the market crashes. Sony sensors have competitors; but unlike flash they're not quite as interchangable; and sony's tech seems to be not just the most predominant, but also the best in the business. Keeping the best stuff for itself could well be an actual advantage for apple, unlike with flash. Not that I'm saying it makes sense, but it makes more sense than buying a flash producer.

abrowne 9y ago

No! They're just about the only source for a small but not low-end Android phone these days.

coding123 9y ago

The movie business and playstation lines alone would make sense for Apple. Most other product lines would be liquidated. The playstation technical employees would probably not have any job changes. I would suspect the codebase of Playstation would remain the same, except for supporting Swift as a language on the platform. I'm not sure how long the Apple and Playstation stores would take to be integrated, but they would probably make that happen. Beyond that there could be many opportunities to integrate apple hardware with your playstation account.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pentae 9y ago
I have always said Apple should buy Nintendo. Much better fit, much better synergy. Imagine what a competitive advantage they would have with Nintendo exclusives being brought to iPhone? - The Nintendo switch is already basically an iPad in a dock, Apple could release a Nintendo dock for iPad that comes with game controllers. The iPad probably has a better GPU too.. $700 buying you an iPad as well as a Nintendo gaming device with better graphics power would be an incredible value proposition. The companies share a similar culture - user experience, family friendly and a cult like following. Would be super interesting as long as they didnt kill Nintendo.

alsetmusic 9y ago

Reason 3 of the article focuses on the PlayStation ecosystem. This fails to address the PlayStation software. macOS and iOS share a common architecture. TvOS and watchOS are derived from iOS. Aside from patents, Apple would have little use in acquiring the PlayStation OS because it wouldn’t be possible to integrate without considerable rewriting (I can’t imagine Apple maintaining it separately). What is more likely, given Apple’s actions in the past, is iterative development of game technology atop Apple’s existing technology. Acquiring the PlayStation software would not be strategically useful.

zie 9y ago
Playstation is based on FreeBSD, and Apple's OS also comes from BSD, apple's UNIX underpinnings are basically FreeBSD userland. I'm sure there is a lot of technical gotcha's here, but they are not at complete technical odds at an OS level, like say Apple buying Microsoft would be(which would just be a disaster for everyone).

odiroot 9y ago

Oh god please no. Sony are my favourite Android phones. I don't want to see them dumbed down and "artistically designed".

emn13 9y ago
Glass backs. Blech.
- xaqfox 9y ago
  There is not a glass back on their newest, XZ Premium. Still no removable battery, though, it does still have a microSD slot.
  - emn13 9y ago
    That's great news! I used to buy the old z[123] compact series, but that glass back... I've got kids and it just doesn't work anymore. A phone needs to have some modicum of robustness to be useful. The ancient, crappy looking samsung s4 I now use is sadly functionally superior to the sony and apple high-end phones, simply because it doesn't shatter when dropped - instead, the plastic back cracks open (again), and maybe the battery get's detached. It's like an unintentional airbag. And it's not like that's a really robust phone either; pre-smartphone phones simply outclassed today's stuff. Seriously, high end phones these days are a joke. They're not even trying. What the beep happened?
- odiroot 9y ago
  The whole Xperia X* series has plastic backs. Also, not like iPhone didn't start with it.
  - emn13 9y ago
    Yeah, they're not the only ones with that misfeature. I gave up on the series for this reason (not joking!) - but now I hear the xz premium doesn't have em anymore, so hey, maybe I'll switch back again. Although I'm a little worried reading the spec sheet. Maybe this is the first ever phone with a 4k display that actually works, but I'm skeptical. Most are simply wasteful battery hogs that simply cost extra money to be worse.

_ph_ 9y ago

Besides the funny fact that many years ago people would blog that Sony should buy Apple, I don't think this is a good idea. In general, I don't think anything good comes out of a large company buying another large company. We get less variety and competition. Sony once was, what Apple is now, a company which would create very unique and beautiful pieces of technology. Their advertising slogan "It is not a trick, it is a Sony" really held true - they would come up with very innovative and nicely designed things. But while a shadow of its past, the old Sony is not gone. Their camera division currently is making the best sensors on the market and their A7 mirrorless line is very popular for a good reason. Being bought by Apple would probably destroy all of this. Apple buying high-tech startups and small companies completely makes sense. They cannot compete with the industry giants, so being bought means that their technology comes to market faster. But for an established company with their very own line of products it would possibly mean destruction as Apple most likely wouldn't allow them to keep their own product lines.

emn13 9y ago
Oh, I don't think there's any doubt it would be terrible for consumers if apple bought Sony. But as I read it, the article suggests it would be good for Apple to buy Sony. And that's a little more plausible. Although history does seem to suggest that such a merger would destroy lots of good bits of Sony, as you point out, which wouldn't just be a shame, but also a rather expensive shame.

hylianwarrior 9y ago

Mergers and consolidation do _not_ help anything. We need _more_ competition, not less. Large corporations are not focused on innovation, which Apple usually pursues

hndamien 9y ago

How about Bragi...