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BW pushes for iPod/iTunes spinout/IPO

updated 09:00 am EDT, Wed May 5, 2004

iPod/ITunes spinout/IPO


An will allow Apple to cash in on the success and hype surrounding Apple's portable music player and iTunes Music Store, according to BusinessWeek Online: "If Apple were to spin out a minority stake of its iPod business, it could rake in big bucks in an initial public offering. With the iPod on track to become a $1 billion business in the next year or so, Apple could expect to pull in at least that amount by selling a 40% stake. Then, Jobs could let someone else run the daily operations and the music side of things, including iTMS. This would be great because Apple more than ever needs to focus not just on the Mac platform but on Microsoft's Windows, too."


by MacNN Staff

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  1. cebritt

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Mar 2000

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    05/05, 09:13am | report spam | Reply |

    Good idea! Apple should..

    ...do it right after Microsoft spins out it's Office products.

  1. jpollard

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    Joined: Feb 2000

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    05/05, 09:14am | report spam | Reply |

    ??

    Can you give me three good reasons why Apple should waste any of their time on "Microsoft's Windows"?

  1. pastusza

    Mac Enthusiast

    Joined: Nov 1999

    0
    05/05, 09:21am | report spam | Reply |

    yeah....

    Just like Apple spun off the Newton. What a brilliant move that was. Perhaps Apple should spin off the PC division into Apple Computers and rename the company to Apple Comsumer Epectronics. Apple makes awesome machines, but the price point sucks. They still need to make an iMac without a monitor. The reason why all these budget PCs look so cheap, is because theyu advertise them WITHOUT monitors.

  1. JeffHarris

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 1999

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    05/05, 09:30am | report spam | Reply |

    Re: yeah...

    Yeah, again. How many times do we all need to say it?!?!?!

    WHEN will Apple LISTEN and crank out a pizza box, Mac LC style headless iMac, eMac... whateverMac.

    They'll sell 'em by the box car loads! REALLY, Steve!

    Just DO it!

  1. BuddhaBay

    Registered User

    Joined: Apr 2004

    0
    05/05, 10:39am | report spam | Reply |

    Alex is on crack

    I think Alexs in on crack. It's basically the BS business talk that always grace business journals. This is outdated pre .com bust talk. Spin off, and cash in?!... nobody spins off the company crown jewels. Microsoft spin off office, xboxs, msn, Adobe spin off Photoshop, Premiere. It's the intergration stupid! Leverage! Beside investors are much more cautious these days and hype alone would never sell.

    Leave iPod + iTunes to be run by someone else??? What the author doesn't get is that the success of the iPod is not pure coincidental. But like most business type people/authors, they talk the talk. This articles lacks depth, structure, logic or any kind of credible analysis.... if there even is an analysis. All he goes on about is that Apple should just give up being a hardware company and start writing software for Microsoft. Not so simple when the OS vendor dictate the terms, APIs, (Hardware? - notice that MS now plays a part in PC Spec : DX9 Graphic cards, sound, bios). Xbox? And why do you think MS has a WinHEC?? Why do you think MS is intergrating XAML, .Net into Longhorn??? Intergration will push acceptance.

    There's immense talent in Apple Engineering, Design and Marketing. The transition of apple form a hardware to software company is not so simple. The reason why the quality of their software is so great especially on the pro software space is because the hardware and OS is designed by them. Without their direct influence in design on the hardware and OS, none of the pro and iApps would have been as good. The Apple apps really leverage the Cocoa framework, iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, iChatAV, FinalCut Pro, Motion. The reason why development of software has been so rapid is because of RAD benefits from Cocoa.

    NeXT had tried it's round in multiplatform software. WebObjects was a state of art piece of framework...ahead of it's time. It did take off? No why?? There was no muscle on any platform to push it's acceptance.

    Alas, the word "Commoditisation" should be deemed a dirty word since it's so overused by IT journals. It just an excuse to not analyse things indepth. Why analyse if you can pass it off as common.

  1. deTaNg

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Apr 2003

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    05/05, 10:45am | report spam | Reply |

    What a baffoon!

    Yeah, that's all Apple needs, to spend their time working on Windows counterparts and c*** out as a whole. What a dumb reporter. No duh, everyone generally wants a bigger portion of the pie but at the cost of your company identity (mac computer sales)?

  1. swatson

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 2000

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    05/05, 10:53am | report spam | Reply |

    not a horrible idea

    I don't think it is that bad of an idea. However it states: "Jobs could let someone else run the daily operations and the music side of things, including iTMS"

    Steve Jobs won't give up the control. And I don't know if he should.

  1. dreilly1

    Mac Elite

    Joined: Sep 2000

    0
    05/05, 10:55am | report spam | Reply |

    Hey, Business Week...

    1995 called, and they want their business model back!

    Apple wants to be more than just a computer vendor. The whole "digital lifestyle" business that Apple was pushing some time ago may just be empty marketspeak, but it is an acknowledgement that pretty much all of our media can be described as computer bits, so the merging of computers and media is inevitable. It's the "digital convergence" stuff that was so hyped up in 1999, it's just coming slower than anticipated.

  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

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    05/05, 10:59am | report spam | Reply |

    Re: Alex on crack

    nobody spins off the company crown jewels.

    Actually, a lot of companies do, although technically here the iPod and iTunes isn't the crown jewels. Companies that are deemed in trouble (not sure how Apple fits in here, but I'm sure there's a way) and need to make money or get a profit need to sell off assets or pieces of your company to bring in said cash. But since no one wants the crappy stuff, the only thing a company can sell off is its profitable stuff. This leaves the original company with just the crappy assets. Gotta love these business philosophies, huh?

    The problem here is the age-old c*** that business-types always espouse, which seems to be a cyclical "They need to branch out to other businesses" to "They need to sell off other businesses to focus on their core products". So, next year, the same guy will probably be yelling about how apple needs to get into other areas (you know, maybe music or something).

    Of course, he also may be just trolling for some quick cash himself, as an apple spin-off would give current Apple stockholders a boost in value.

    BTW, that spin-off by 3Com of their Palm unit sure helped Palm out, didn't it. Then Palm spun off its hardware from the software. And now its all c***...

  1. Truepop

    Mac Elite

    Joined: Mar 2003

    0
    05/05, 11:00am | report spam | Reply |

    sounds like

    I don't see the point in it. spinning off something like itunes/ipod sounds like to me a get rich scheme and will end flaming in a wreckage.

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