4 ms·

At some point, does it become silly for the biggest companies to attempt their own solutions instead of just buying the one with the most traction or best imple

At some point, does it become silly for the biggest companies to attempt their own solutions instead of just buying the one with the most traction or best implementation? One example might be how Amazon never got into self-driving cars themselves, but then last year bought Zoox.

at-fates-hands 6y ago
I work in health care. I also work for one of the biggest health care companies in the world. They are losing market share to smaller, more agile companies. Smaller companies who can whip out apps and solutions way faster than the company I work for. Their solution is to buy the companies whose technology they want to leverage for their own, similar to what Apple is doing. This is a good tactic, but then creates another separate issue - how do you integrate all of these companies and their tech and employee's into your massive structure? This has now created a huge bottleneck in that M&A (mergers and acquisitions) are tasked are buying companies and then having to take several years before they can fully integrate them into our company. It is a painfully slow process, but they still believe its faster to do it this way, then to try and build the tools and applications on their own. I feel like the jury is out on whether this is a good long term strategy or simply replacing one problem for another.
- root_axis 6y ago
  I suppose it all depends on the extant in-house expertise. If you're in a "we don't know what we don't know" situation with respect to the problem, it's less risky to buy the experts with a proven record rather than spend an indefinite amount of time and money on R&D which might not yield success. Integrating into a familiar bureaucracy is at least the devil you know
lmm 6y ago
There's no point in buying an unrelated business that you're going to leave operating as usual - you might as well just invest that money on the stock market instead, or pay it out to your shareholders. So presumably if a company is buying a solution to X then it believes it can gain a competitive advantage by integrating X into the rest of its business. Given that, I would've thought that the earlier you buy the thing, the easier it is to integrate it with the rest of your company and the quicker you start gaining the benefits of that. Waiting to buy the winner shouldn't be any cheaper than buying all the competitors in the field at the start, because it's no secret how everyone's doing. So the only reasons not to develop in-house from day 1 are if you're not as good at developing things as a small independent company, or there's some other advantage that you're missing, or the option value from the fact that small companies can go bankrupt on their own (but that's only really applicable if the business is capital-intensive).
- apahwa 6y ago
  can you name a business that is completely unrelated to Apple or Amazon and would not see significant benefits from being absorbed?
  - zaphirplane 6y ago
    For apple :- a farm, cattle station, cement factory, brick maker, carpets, upholstery, chicken farm the list goes on
    - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
      Introducing Apple Chicken.
      - tshanmu 6y ago
        New improved version, only gives you the runs if you eat it holding the wrong way....
        fzil 6y ago
        imagine having to go to the genius bar to get your chicken cooked the right way
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - lmm 6y ago
    The way I'd think about it is "would that business put any time into a partnership with Apple/Amazon if the chance came up". I guess you could argue that any business above a certain size would consider them worth talking to for some kind of cross-promotional deal even if that doesn't make a lot of sense on the face of it - Caterpillar? Hilton? But I think small focused companies outside of Apple/Amazon's core field wouldn't want to spend time on something like that. So B2B, non-tech, smallish companies - which by their very nature I can't name a lot of, but there's a lot of them out there.
m463 6y ago
I think it has an effect on people working for apple. At some point acquiring other companies will affect the ability to hire and retain developers. It might also be a clue that their ability is diminished, or that internal ideas are not being promoted - whatever process Steve Jobs used to bring the good stuff to light.

at-fates-hands 6y ago

I work in health care. I also work for one of the biggest health care companies in the world. They are losing market share to smaller, more agile companies. Smaller companies who can whip out apps and solutions way faster than the company I work for. Their solution is to buy the companies whose technology they want to leverage for their own, similar to what Apple is doing. This is a good tactic, but then creates another separate issue - how do you integrate all of these companies and their tech and employee's into your massive structure? This has now created a huge bottleneck in that M&A (mergers and acquisitions) are tasked are buying companies and then having to take several years before they can fully integrate them into our company. It is a painfully slow process, but they still believe its faster to do it this way, then to try and build the tools and applications on their own. I feel like the jury is out on whether this is a good long term strategy or simply replacing one problem for another.

root_axis 6y ago
I suppose it all depends on the extant in-house expertise. If you're in a "we don't know what we don't know" situation with respect to the problem, it's less risky to buy the experts with a proven record rather than spend an indefinite amount of time and money on R&D which might not yield success. Integrating into a familiar bureaucracy is at least the devil you know

lmm 6y ago

There's no point in buying an unrelated business that you're going to leave operating as usual - you might as well just invest that money on the stock market instead, or pay it out to your shareholders. So presumably if a company is buying a solution to X then it believes it can gain a competitive advantage by integrating X into the rest of its business. Given that, I would've thought that the earlier you buy the thing, the easier it is to integrate it with the rest of your company and the quicker you start gaining the benefits of that. Waiting to buy the winner shouldn't be any cheaper than buying all the competitors in the field at the start, because it's no secret how everyone's doing. So the only reasons not to develop in-house from day 1 are if you're not as good at developing things as a small independent company, or there's some other advantage that you're missing, or the option value from the fact that small companies can go bankrupt on their own (but that's only really applicable if the business is capital-intensive).

apahwa 6y ago
can you name a business that is completely unrelated to Apple or Amazon and would not see significant benefits from being absorbed?
- zaphirplane 6y ago
  For apple :- a farm, cattle station, cement factory, brick maker, carpets, upholstery, chicken farm the list goes on
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    Introducing Apple Chicken.
    - tshanmu 6y ago
      New improved version, only gives you the runs if you eat it holding the wrong way....
      - fzil 6y ago
        imagine having to go to the genius bar to get your chicken cooked the right way
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- lmm 6y ago
  The way I'd think about it is "would that business put any time into a partnership with Apple/Amazon if the chance came up". I guess you could argue that any business above a certain size would consider them worth talking to for some kind of cross-promotional deal even if that doesn't make a lot of sense on the face of it - Caterpillar? Hilton? But I think small focused companies outside of Apple/Amazon's core field wouldn't want to spend time on something like that. So B2B, non-tech, smallish companies - which by their very nature I can't name a lot of, but there's a lot of them out there.

m463 6y ago

I think it has an effect on people working for apple. At some point acquiring other companies will affect the ability to hire and retain developers. It might also be a clue that their ability is diminished, or that internal ideas are not being promoted - whatever process Steve Jobs used to bring the good stuff to light.