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I don't see why the price Apple paid matters at all. What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant. LinkedIn, Whole Foods, and WhatsApp hav

I don't see why the price Apple paid matters at all. What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant. LinkedIn, Whole Foods, and WhatsApp have continued to thrive after acquisition, all of Apple's acquisitions are gutted and scavenged for parts to incorporate into their locked-down walled garden. Don't get me wrong, it's a great business strategy and the reason that Apple products are typically superior to the competition, but it's far more hostile and anti-competitive compared to the cited examples.

PierceJoy 6y ago
Is this a distinction without a difference? LinkedIn's tech is wholly owned and funded by Microsoft. If you are competing with LinkedIn, you are competing with Microsoft regardless of the name on the website. Since more diverse competition is the goal, I don't believe these situations are actually different.
- root_axis 6y ago
  The distinction is that the other examples listed continue to exist in their original form with their original vision and use-case intact, without disrupting the user experience by being shutdown and reconstituted as part of an Apple exclusive product or service.
  - PierceJoy 6y ago
    That's a fair point, but I think you've cherry picked a few very notable examples and made an apples to oranges comparison. The other tech companies acquire hundreds of small companies and shut them down. Google is notorious for this. The examples you used were big companies with massive user bases before the acquisition. I suspect Apple's most notable acquisition to date is Beats, and it continues to operate under it's own brand today.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      I didn't cherry-pick anything, those were the examples listed in the article and quoted to me in response to my original comment. As I already stated, I don't have a problem with acquisitions, I am aware that Apple isn't the only company that does this, I'm just pointing out the contrast in tone and rhetoric when it comes to Apple vs pretty much every other big tech company on this website.
      - PierceJoy 6y ago
        No offence, but this latest comment doesn't fit with the original comment I replied to. You were clearly commenting on what Apple does with their acquisitions, not the tone of the response, and that is what I was replying to. You said "What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant" and then went on to detail how you thought they handled their acquisitions differently. That said, I don't agree that the tone is different for Apple vs any other company. I would have agreed years ago, but it's not longer my observation today.
        root_axis 6y ago
        I don't mean this to sound snarky so I hope you don't interpret it that way, but I think the flow of the conversation makes more sense if you read from my original comment. I was only responding to what was written to me. I made the point about Apple's acquisition behavior because the reply to my original comment suggested my observations could be explained by the cost of Apple's acquisitions as compared to other examples listed in the article by other companies. My response described why I don't think the amount Apple paid should really matter in this context, especially with respect to examples offered to me for comparison, then you came and suggested it's a distinction without a difference, and when I explained the differences I see, you then accused me of cherry-picking, but the context you're missing is that I was never trying to debate Apple's acquisition practices to begin with.
        PierceJoy 6y ago
        If you were never trying to debate Apple's acquisition practises, then you probably shouldn't have participated in the debate about them. Someone else started it, yes, but you then replied to them. That makes it fair to respond to your reply and address the contents of that reply. You directly commented on how Apple assimilates their acquisitions, and implied others do not. That is what I am addressing. I completely understand that's not what your top level comment was about, but I didn't reply to your top level comment. I think you might feel insulted by my use of cherry picking. I apologize for that. I can understand why you might feel that way, but it was meant more in the sense that the examples referred to are not comparable, not that you did it on purpose out of bad faith.
  - kergonath 6y ago
    You are probably right about the user experience, but > with their original vision and use-case intact This is a difficult point to make in the face of what’s becoming if WhatsApp and Instagram. Certainly, the vision has changed quite a lot and now Facebook is tearing down the last insulating walls between them and WhatsApp users’ data. Same for Nest, for example. Sure, it continued as a brand for a while, but that was just a facade. Microsoft might be a better case than Facebook for your argument: LinkedIn and GitHub seem to have more or less stayed the same (but then so has Beats, as well, and that certainly is an outlier).
cmdli 6y ago
It's not the price that necessarily matters but the market share, which is often represented in the price. A company like Facebook (a large social media corporation) buying WhatsApp (a large messaging app) creates an even bigger company in terms of influence on the market. Apple might be buying companies for their tech, but their acquisitions don't just automatically increase their influence or market share through consolidation. For example, I would be a lot less worried about Exxon buying small petroleum tech startups that don't own any oil fields than I would be about Exxon buying Shell, a major competitor in terms of market share.
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  You're getting downvoted, but I agree. I think Apple buys much earlier on in the process, like when it tried to buy Audion and then eventually grabbed SoundJam [1] as part of creating the original iTunes. A more typical brand-preserved acquisition for Apple might have been when it bought Siri (originally an app) or if it had succeeded in buying Dropbox (which probably also would have retained the name). [1]: https://panic.com/extras/audionstory/ https://panic.com/extras/audionstory/
- root_axis 6y ago
  It's a smart business strategy to buy smaller companies with great potential, it probably has something to do with why Apple is the richest company on earth, but that strategy also snuffs out that potential company before it has a chance to reach the prodigious scale of a WhatsApp or a LinkedIn. Presumably, Apple knows how to pick winners, so it's likely that at least a small fraction of Apple's acquisitions would have gone on to become ubiquitous house-hold names had they not been sold. Alas, it was fated not to be, but who knows what could have been?
  - spideymans 6y ago
    > Presumably, Apple knows how to pick winners, so it's likely that at least a small fraction of Apple's acquisitions would have gone on to become ubiquitous house-hold names had they not been sold. Not necessarily. If you’re only interested in acquiring technology, the commercial success of prospective acquisitions isn’t particularly relevant.
coldtea 6y ago
>I don't see why the price Apple paid matters at all. Because it's a signal of how strong the acquisitions are. Tech/talent acquisitions, like these, are far more benign than buying and killing strong rising competitors in your domain and consolidating power (e.g. Facebook and Instagram). >all of Apple's acquisitions are gutted and scavenged for parts to incorporate into their locked-down walled garden That's because they usually amounted to nothing end-user wise to begin with. They where just smaller specific technologies that, e.g. went to be incorporated into the OS or similar...
cafed00d 6y ago
Having worked at Amazon’s retail division and at Apple probably gives me some credibility to share a different perspective. Perhaps? :) Companies that acquire smaller companies and let them run independently typically create a schism in the culture — a division of haves/have-nots and run the risk of overspending without justified returns (Twitch for example retains typically Silicon Valley perks but doesn’t generate as much revenue as Retail site does). Apple acquisitions on the other hand are solely about technology & integration. I can only think of Beats being their only acquisition that has some independence still. I don’t know what’s going on there though. But I work with a dozen or so teams that were all Apple acquisitions and their entire charter is build for Apple and shut everything else down. Makes it much simpler to organize people/teams and makes purpose of teams super clear from a product perspective. Amazon, Microsoft and others’ acquisitions make it seem very much like a conglomerate of sorts. I guess that has benefits too — typically not in core technologies though. Perhaps I just disagree that is hostile or anti-competitive from that perspective. It seem like FB’s acquisition of WhatsApp (and similar moves by others) is more characteristic of anti-competitive behavior (ie capturing potential competitors early etc)

PierceJoy 6y ago

Is this a distinction without a difference? LinkedIn's tech is wholly owned and funded by Microsoft. If you are competing with LinkedIn, you are competing with Microsoft regardless of the name on the website. Since more diverse competition is the goal, I don't believe these situations are actually different.

root_axis 6y ago
The distinction is that the other examples listed continue to exist in their original form with their original vision and use-case intact, without disrupting the user experience by being shutdown and reconstituted as part of an Apple exclusive product or service.
- PierceJoy 6y ago
  That's a fair point, but I think you've cherry picked a few very notable examples and made an apples to oranges comparison. The other tech companies acquire hundreds of small companies and shut them down. Google is notorious for this. The examples you used were big companies with massive user bases before the acquisition. I suspect Apple's most notable acquisition to date is Beats, and it continues to operate under it's own brand today.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    I didn't cherry-pick anything, those were the examples listed in the article and quoted to me in response to my original comment. As I already stated, I don't have a problem with acquisitions, I am aware that Apple isn't the only company that does this, I'm just pointing out the contrast in tone and rhetoric when it comes to Apple vs pretty much every other big tech company on this website.
    - PierceJoy 6y ago
      No offence, but this latest comment doesn't fit with the original comment I replied to. You were clearly commenting on what Apple does with their acquisitions, not the tone of the response, and that is what I was replying to. You said "What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant" and then went on to detail how you thought they handled their acquisitions differently. That said, I don't agree that the tone is different for Apple vs any other company. I would have agreed years ago, but it's not longer my observation today.
      - root_axis 6y ago
        I don't mean this to sound snarky so I hope you don't interpret it that way, but I think the flow of the conversation makes more sense if you read from my original comment. I was only responding to what was written to me. I made the point about Apple's acquisition behavior because the reply to my original comment suggested my observations could be explained by the cost of Apple's acquisitions as compared to other examples listed in the article by other companies. My response described why I don't think the amount Apple paid should really matter in this context, especially with respect to examples offered to me for comparison, then you came and suggested it's a distinction without a difference, and when I explained the differences I see, you then accused me of cherry-picking, but the context you're missing is that I was never trying to debate Apple's acquisition practices to begin with.
        PierceJoy 6y ago
        If you were never trying to debate Apple's acquisition practises, then you probably shouldn't have participated in the debate about them. Someone else started it, yes, but you then replied to them. That makes it fair to respond to your reply and address the contents of that reply. You directly commented on how Apple assimilates their acquisitions, and implied others do not. That is what I am addressing. I completely understand that's not what your top level comment was about, but I didn't reply to your top level comment. I think you might feel insulted by my use of cherry picking. I apologize for that. I can understand why you might feel that way, but it was meant more in the sense that the examples referred to are not comparable, not that you did it on purpose out of bad faith.
- kergonath 6y ago
  You are probably right about the user experience, but > with their original vision and use-case intact This is a difficult point to make in the face of what’s becoming if WhatsApp and Instagram. Certainly, the vision has changed quite a lot and now Facebook is tearing down the last insulating walls between them and WhatsApp users’ data. Same for Nest, for example. Sure, it continued as a brand for a while, but that was just a facade. Microsoft might be a better case than Facebook for your argument: LinkedIn and GitHub seem to have more or less stayed the same (but then so has Beats, as well, and that certainly is an outlier).

cmdli 6y ago

It's not the price that necessarily matters but the market share, which is often represented in the price. A company like Facebook (a large social media corporation) buying WhatsApp (a large messaging app) creates an even bigger company in terms of influence on the market. Apple might be buying companies for their tech, but their acquisitions don't just automatically increase their influence or market share through consolidation. For example, I would be a lot less worried about Exxon buying small petroleum tech startups that don't own any oil fields than I would be about Exxon buying Shell, a major competitor in terms of market share.

mikepurvis 6y ago
You're getting downvoted, but I agree. I think Apple buys much earlier on in the process, like when it tried to buy Audion and then eventually grabbed SoundJam [1] as part of creating the original iTunes. A more typical brand-preserved acquisition for Apple might have been when it bought Siri (originally an app) or if it had succeeded in buying Dropbox (which probably also would have retained the name). [1]: https://panic.com/extras/audionstory/ https://panic.com/extras/audionstory/
root_axis 6y ago
It's a smart business strategy to buy smaller companies with great potential, it probably has something to do with why Apple is the richest company on earth, but that strategy also snuffs out that potential company before it has a chance to reach the prodigious scale of a WhatsApp or a LinkedIn. Presumably, Apple knows how to pick winners, so it's likely that at least a small fraction of Apple's acquisitions would have gone on to become ubiquitous house-hold names had they not been sold. Alas, it was fated not to be, but who knows what could have been?
- spideymans 6y ago
  > Presumably, Apple knows how to pick winners, so it's likely that at least a small fraction of Apple's acquisitions would have gone on to become ubiquitous house-hold names had they not been sold. Not necessarily. If you’re only interested in acquiring technology, the commercial success of prospective acquisitions isn’t particularly relevant.

coldtea 6y ago

>I don't see why the price Apple paid matters at all. Because it's a signal of how strong the acquisitions are. Tech/talent acquisitions, like these, are far more benign than buying and killing strong rising competitors in your domain and consolidating power (e.g. Facebook and Instagram). >all of Apple's acquisitions are gutted and scavenged for parts to incorporate into their locked-down walled garden That's because they usually amounted to nothing end-user wise to begin with. They where just smaller specific technologies that, e.g. went to be incorporated into the OS or similar...

cafed00d 6y ago

Having worked at Amazon’s retail division and at Apple probably gives me some credibility to share a different perspective. Perhaps? :) Companies that acquire smaller companies and let them run independently typically create a schism in the culture — a division of haves/have-nots and run the risk of overspending without justified returns (Twitch for example retains typically Silicon Valley perks but doesn’t generate as much revenue as Retail site does). Apple acquisitions on the other hand are solely about technology & integration. I can only think of Beats being their only acquisition that has some independence still. I don’t know what’s going on there though. But I work with a dozen or so teams that were all Apple acquisitions and their entire charter is build for Apple and shut everything else down. Makes it much simpler to organize people/teams and makes purpose of teams super clear from a product perspective. Amazon, Microsoft and others’ acquisitions make it seem very much like a conglomerate of sorts. I guess that has benefits too — typically not in core technologies though. Perhaps I just disagree that is hostile or anti-competitive from that perspective. It seem like FB’s acquisition of WhatsApp (and similar moves by others) is more characteristic of anti-competitive behavior (ie capturing potential competitors early etc)