4 ms·

It sounds a bit like the GT Advanced situation. Apple starts a relationship with a company, the deal becomes the VAST MAJORITY of the company's revenue, the co

by basch 8y ago

It sounds a bit like the GT Advanced situation. Apple starts a relationship with a company, the deal becomes the VAST MAJORITY of the company's revenue, the company wants to get out of the buisness of being an apple supplier, because IF they scale to that size and lose a contract, they have huge cuts to make. So apple comes in, buys a substantial part of the company, and now the company can continue to operate without fear of downsizing. Any downsizing will be apples doing not theirs.

hinkley 8y ago
When you get most of your money from one or two sources you aren’t really in control anymore. I can totally appreciate not wanting to be beholden to anyone. The last consulting firm I worked for had over 70% of their revenue coming from two contracts, and neither contract used any of the tools or philosophies the consulting company claimed to espouse. Ended up being the case that all the reasons I wanted to work there were just marketing messages and my sense of betrayal soured the relationship. That the guy in charge of developers left about a year after we parted ways... every time I think about those people I wonder if he knew it was all bullshit or if he just got tired of dealing with attitude from stressed out developers and never understood why they were pushing back.
- kbenson 8y ago
  > The last consulting firm I worked for had over 70% of their revenue coming from two contracts, and neither contract used any of the tools or philosophies the consulting company claimed to espouse. Assuming you're talking about philosophies that are considered good practice because they lead to more sustainable design practices and smoother development later, I have doubts those ever survive in long-term consulting contracts. The way pressure flows in those scenarios always leads towards emphasizing speed of development. Anything else requires multiple points in the management path both in the local firm and client firm to be willing to forego short term cost for potential long term gains, and if any one of them is out of alignment it causes problems.
  - frandroid 8y ago
    If the client is not short-sighted they'll realize that asking to cut corners in the short term results in higher costs in the long term. But if they were this smart they might be doing the development inhouse in the first place. :)
  - hinkley 8y ago
    But why wouldn't you pick a cut-rate consulting firm in that case instead of one that claimed to be doing deep work in a number of areas?
    - kbenson 8y ago
      The point is not that people don't want to encourage behavior that pays off in the end, it's that it takes alllinks in the chain to be vigilant about it to happen. Anywhere in the line between the the client company's CEO to the consultant company's developer if someone decides to cut corners because of time, cost or some other unknown reason, that will flow down through each subsequent level to the actual developers. There's probably five people in that chain minimum (including the developer, the client CEO, the consultancy CEO, and any managing coordinators), and any one of them can easily change this because of their own pressures. It's an inherently fragile system.
simonh 8y ago
It's a much better situation that what happened to imagination Technologies, when Apple decided to in-source their video acceleration tech on the A-series CPUs. The company's share price dropped 70%.
- giobox 8y ago
  It was a similar story back in the iPod days as well, Wolfson Microelectronics (coincidentally also a UK firm like Imagination Technologies) suffered similar problems when Apple massively reduced their orders. > https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/mar/27/wolfson.apple.ipod https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/mar/27/wolfson.app...
donavanm 8y ago
See also PA Semi and Intrinsity from a decade back. Important, but small, suppliers who are picked up as asset buys and the talent become an internal team.
delfinom 8y ago
Dialog actually tried to get out of Apple dependence but lost their bid for Atmel to Microchip.

by basch 8y ago

hinkley 8y ago

When you get most of your money from one or two sources you aren’t really in control anymore. I can totally appreciate not wanting to be beholden to anyone. The last consulting firm I worked for had over 70% of their revenue coming from two contracts, and neither contract used any of the tools or philosophies the consulting company claimed to espouse. Ended up being the case that all the reasons I wanted to work there were just marketing messages and my sense of betrayal soured the relationship. That the guy in charge of developers left about a year after we parted ways... every time I think about those people I wonder if he knew it was all bullshit or if he just got tired of dealing with attitude from stressed out developers and never understood why they were pushing back.

kbenson 8y ago
> The last consulting firm I worked for had over 70% of their revenue coming from two contracts, and neither contract used any of the tools or philosophies the consulting company claimed to espouse. Assuming you're talking about philosophies that are considered good practice because they lead to more sustainable design practices and smoother development later, I have doubts those ever survive in long-term consulting contracts. The way pressure flows in those scenarios always leads towards emphasizing speed of development. Anything else requires multiple points in the management path both in the local firm and client firm to be willing to forego short term cost for potential long term gains, and if any one of them is out of alignment it causes problems.
- frandroid 8y ago
  If the client is not short-sighted they'll realize that asking to cut corners in the short term results in higher costs in the long term. But if they were this smart they might be doing the development inhouse in the first place. :)
- hinkley 8y ago
  But why wouldn't you pick a cut-rate consulting firm in that case instead of one that claimed to be doing deep work in a number of areas?
  - kbenson 8y ago
    The point is not that people don't want to encourage behavior that pays off in the end, it's that it takes alllinks in the chain to be vigilant about it to happen. Anywhere in the line between the the client company's CEO to the consultant company's developer if someone decides to cut corners because of time, cost or some other unknown reason, that will flow down through each subsequent level to the actual developers. There's probably five people in that chain minimum (including the developer, the client CEO, the consultancy CEO, and any managing coordinators), and any one of them can easily change this because of their own pressures. It's an inherently fragile system.

simonh 8y ago

It's a much better situation that what happened to imagination Technologies, when Apple decided to in-source their video acceleration tech on the A-series CPUs. The company's share price dropped 70%.

giobox 8y ago
It was a similar story back in the iPod days as well, Wolfson Microelectronics (coincidentally also a UK firm like Imagination Technologies) suffered similar problems when Apple massively reduced their orders. > https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/mar/27/wolfson.apple.ipod https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/mar/27/wolfson.app...

donavanm 8y ago

See also PA Semi and Intrinsity from a decade back. Important, but small, suppliers who are picked up as asset buys and the talent become an internal team.

delfinom 8y ago

Dialog actually tried to get out of Apple dependence but lost their bid for Atmel to Microchip.