苹果要不要买下匈牙利

    上周，苹果公司（Apple）召开了股东大会。正如大家所知，大会对苹果如何使用所持的1,370亿现金展开了积极的讨论。我看到有篇文章说，苹果的现金储备差不多等于整个匈牙利的GDP，所以也许某个激进主义的股东应该推动苹果收购匈牙利，而不是干些小打小闹的事情（比如增加股息，或者发行优先股）。

    匈牙利可能不愿意把主权和整个经济体拱手卖出，不过由于苹果没有债务，匈牙利或许能将这笔交易作为杠杆，在1,370亿美元资本的基础上借贷到更多钱。想到苹果将使匈牙利的税收提高，从而为股息资本重组筹集资金，我就觉得很搞笑……

    严肃一点说，苹果应该如何处理一大笔不断增加的现金呢？三个显而易见的方案分别是：大量投资新产品（Apple TV、iWatch或者其他产品）、向股东返还现金（通过股息、回购、发布新型优先股等方式）以及招募员工。除去匈牙利之外，还有什么并购方案真的有意义呢？

    首先，苹果不是思科（Cisco）或者甲骨文（Oracle）。相反，这家公司之所以不可思议，是得益于它内部创新的悠久历史，而并不是因为它在收购、整合和培养其他业务方面有出色表现。很长的时间内（按照技术标准），苹果1亿美元以上的收购案例屈指可数，10亿美元以上的收购更是从来没有出现过。通过收购NeXT，苹果建立了如今台式机系统Mac OS的基础，还把史蒂夫•乔布斯请回了苹果。更近一些，苹果收购Quattro Wireless，创造了iAds手机广告网络；而收购SIRI公司则获取了智能语音助手Siri技术。比较不走运的是对一家瑞典地图技术公司（C3）的收购，苹果在此基础上创立了Apple Maps。最后，苹果兼并了几家组件公司（芯片公司Intrinsity和P.A. Semi，闪存公司Anobit，还有安全设备厂商Authentec），将它们整合进了丰富多彩的“i”字辈产品中。

    苹果在本质上非常擅长打造具有创造力的新平台。它们因为易于使用，让数字生活变得合理，而广受消费者青睐。它并不是第一家跨入PC机、MP3、智能手机甚至平板电脑领域的公司，但它却彻底革新了这些领域。苹果并不真正通过出售软件或数字内容赚钱，但是它无缝集成了软件和数字内容，从而支撑了高利润的硬件业务。

    但是苹果骨子里追求的是巨大突破，而不是循序渐进。所以如果他们想要成为一家雄心勃勃的公司，我认为在他们在收购上需要同产品创新一样高瞻远瞩，勇往直前。苹果需要追求的三大主要推动力分别是：

    1. 收购内容。内容对于苹果的平台而言，具有战略上的重大意义。但在苹果宏大的计划中，这只是业务里几乎没有意义的一部分。把苹果所有的内容、软件和服务（比如iCloud订阅服务）加起来，也只占苹果收入的6%。但客观地来说，苹果从所有充电器和其他配件上获取的收入也仅占内容、软件、服务三者创造的总收入的50%。

    一些人认为苹果应该收购网飞（Netflix）。理论上看这很合理：网飞的市值达到100亿美元，与大量内容所有者有业务来往，拥有一个存有已开发内容的数据库，还有令人愉快且忠心的顾客基础。但这个设想在我看来则不是那么合理。顾客喜爱网飞的原因是他们可以将它应用于所有硬件设备上（多家制造商的电视机、游戏机和平板电脑等），而内容所有者愿意与网飞合作，是因为他们不希望iTunes在统治数字音乐之后再统治数字视频领域。苹果可以转而收购迪斯尼（Walt Disney Co.，市值980亿美元），并拥有内容丰富的巨大数据库和“基础设施”以开发更多产品（ABC/ESPN频道、电影制片厂等）。迪斯尼主题公园可能需要出让，但是迪斯尼的其余部分能够给苹果提供难以置信的平台，以重新思考如何在这个随需应变的世界发展家庭视频业务。它还可以在硬件之外，从内容上获取有意义的利润，促使公司转型。根据这个思路，时代华纳（Time Warner）也是这个领域不错的收购对象。

    Yesterday was Apple's shareholder meeting and, as many of you know, there's been healthy debate about what they should do with its $137 billion in cash. I had read somewhere that Apple's cash pile was equivalent to Hungary's GDP so perhaps an activist shareholder should push an acquisition of Hungary rather than thinking small (e.g., increasing dividends or issuing preferred stock).

    Hungary probably wouldn't sell its sovereignty and entire economy for 1x sales, but Apple (AAPL) has no debt so they could probably lever the deal and borrow money on top of $137 billion in equity. For some reason, the notion of Apple hiking the taxes of Hungary to fund a dividend recap just amuses me…

    More seriously, what should Apple do with a massive and growing pile of cash? The three obvious buckets are to invest heavily in new products (the Apple TV or iWatch or whatever), return cash to shareholders (via dividends, buybacks, new class of preferred shares, etc) or acquire stuff. Besides Hungary, what M&A strategies actually make sense?

    For starters, Apple isn't Cisco (CSCO) or Oracle (ORCL). Instead, it's an incredible organization because of its long history of internal innovation rather than excellence in acquiring, integrating and growing other businesses. Over the long arc of time (by tech standards) Apple has done very few acquisitions above$100 million and has never done a billion dollar+ deal. Buying NeXT provided the foundation of what is now the desktop Mac OS, plus brought Steve Jobs back to the Apple fold. More recently, acquiring Quattro Wireless created the iAds mobile ad network and Siri was a technology acquired from SRI. Less auspiciously Apple bought a Swedish mapping technology company (C3) to form the basis of Apple Maps. Lastly Apple has bought several component companies (chip companies Intrinsity and P.A. Semi, flash memory company Anobit, and security hardware – Authentec) to be integrated in various iStuff.

    Apple is fundamentally great at creating innovative new platforms that consumers love because they're easy to use and rationalize digital fragmentation. It wasn't the first in PCs, MP3 players, smartphones or even tablets -- yet Apple revolutionized each of those categories. Apple doesn't really make money by selling software or even digital content, but it seamlessly integrates software and content to support a high margin hardware business.

    But Apple's DNA is about quantum leaps, not incremental ones. So if they were to become an acquisitive company, I'd argue is has to be as big and bold in buying as it is in product innovation. The three main vectors Apple might pursue are:

    1. Buy Content. Content is strategically important to Apple's platforms, but in the grand scheme of Apple it's a pretty meaningless part of their business. If you add up all the content, software and services (e.g., iCloud subscriptions), it's only about 6% of Apple's revenue. To put that in perspective, all the chargers and other accessory stuff amounts to about 50% of the revenue Apple generates from content + software + services.

    Some people think Apple should buy Netflix (NFLX). On paper it makes sense: $10 billion market cap, deals with lots of content owners, a nascent library of Netflix developed content and a happy/loyal consumer base. But it makes less sense to me. Consumers love Netflix because they can get it on all kinds of hardware devices (TVs from many makers, game consoles, tablets, etc.) and content owners deal with Netflix because they don't want iTunes to dominate digital video as it has digital music. Apple could buy Walt Disney Co. (DIS) instead (~$98B mkt cap) and own a vast library of content and the "infrastructure" to develop more (ABC/ESPN, movie studios, etc.). It would probably divest theme parks, but the rest of Disney would give Apple an incredible platform to rethink video at home in an on-demand world. It also would transform the company by making meaningful profits on content in addition to hardware. Time Warner (TWX) would be the other logical choice in this vector.