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Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

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Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#361

Post by AlexeyBrin »

72deluxe wrote: post #358
AlexeyBrin wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get VS 2013 Community Edition for free (it is basically the Pro edition with a different name), for your personal use or for companies with less than 5 people.

Thanks for the heads up. I will definitely have to get that downloaded and sorted under a VM some time soon. Is it really just the Pro version? Is distribution of software created with it limited?

Yes it is the Pro version with a different name, no time limitation ... You can read more on Microsoft VS page: http://www.visualstudio.com/products/visual-studio-community...

Small excerpt:

Visual Studio Community 2013 includes all the great functionality of Visual Studio Professional 2013, designed and optimized for individual developers, students, open source contributors, and small teams.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#362

Post by rtpg »

snowwrestler wrote: post #327
rtpg wrote: post #321

This is about revenue, but every time I see Apple's financial statements, I remember that Apple (as of June 2014) has 160 billion dollars in cash. 2 years of _revenue_ (not operating expenses, mind you, but quite a bit more). I think Bill Gates was all about having enough cash to run the company without a single sale for a year, but apparently they have a 20% profit margin, so we're looking at almost 30 months where…

I'm not sure what you mean by referencing trickle-down economics. I mean, what's the alternative, that Apple distibute that money to shareholders? I don't think stock buy-backs and dividends are what people mean when they say trickle-down economics. Anyway, Apple does not have a giant vault filled with $160 billion just sitting there. That "cash" hoard is actually invested somewhere (probably numerous places) where i…

One alternative is they spend that money on more employees (or raise the salaries of the employees)

The $160 billion is in easily liquidated assets (which is basically the same as cash for companies of this size), it's still being more or less useless economically.

This might come off as being a bit "waaah companies aren't allowed to be successful", but on a social responsibility level I don't get how you justify holding on to over $80 billion.

Obviously the US tax system also has things about it that contribute to this state of affairs. But even if the money could be brought back into the US tax-free , do you think Apple would be spending it? I don't know. Again, waaah Apple isn't allowed to be successful.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#363

Post by Jach »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #278
Jach wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can we not start looking at some of these organizations less as companies, and more as countries? How about the reverse? Countries as companies? And why don't we look at how large, complex companies can do so much better financially than governments?

Companies can do so much better than governments because governments pay for all the things that companies use - like transport networks, education, healthcare, military cover, and so on. Taxes are so small, relatively, companies get these benefits as a free, or at least as a heavily subsidised, handout.

Governments get the same benefits that companies do from these things -- it's just that the government does the reinvesting in those cases while other companies might reinvest elsewhere (or in the not-to-distant past some of those very areas). It's the same principle behind companies backing open source. The companies themselves benefit from it, and so do others. And sometimes the initial contributions allow further contributions, like Walmart utilizing the transport networks to greatly improve the lives of the citizens and the tax base for the government.

The governments needing to pay for those basic things (while having a captive income stream) can't be the sole reason governments do so terribly at their duties. How do you explain the F-35 from the basis that governments gotta build roads? Why not look at process and management and incentives, which go a long way towards explaining why different companies do better than others?

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#364

Post by dba7dba »

dognotdog wrote: post #349
dba7dba wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about picking a car company for example? Don't most car companies directly hire employees that assemble the final product (car)?

But, most parts that go into a car are manufactured by suppliers, not the car company. Also, many employees are not direct hires, but employed by an intermediary agency. Long story short, while they do the final assembly more directly, 90% of the work is still done in China, figuratively speaking.

I understand no large company can literally directly hire employees for all their material, parts, tools, and assembly. BUT most large car companies still directly hire own employees to put together the final product.

And my point is Apple has hardly any employee that actually assembles the end product (in this case iphone, ipad, macbook etc), other than a few in US that build custome Mac Pro in US.

So before one gets giddy about how profit per Apple employee is so high, he/she should remember there are literally hundreds of thousands of people assembling the final product but they are not counted as employees of Apple.

You can call this practice any one of these: 1. It's smart business and that's what capitalism is all about. 2. It's immoral and unpatriotic.

From what I know, no other non-China and non-US phone companies outsource 99% of assembling. Maybe I'm wrong.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#365

Post by dba7dba »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #273
dba7dba wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about picking a car company for example? Don't most car companies directly hire employees that assemble the final product (car)?

Yeah, but you can't stuff a hundred thousand cars in a single shipping container.

Hundreds of thousands of cars are shipped between continents every year...

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#366

Post by dba7dba »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #281
dba7dba wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Foxconn employees are employees of Foxconn in name only. They are effectively employees of Apple. No Apple hardware would be produced at the price point, in the quantity needed if Foxconn did not exist. So imo, the revenue per employee of Apple as we are talking about is skewed badly.

But it would be unskewed again if you calculate the expenses Apple made for production costs as profit for Foxconn and added that to the figures.

Even if Foxconn charged Apple really fat margin for assembling the final products in China, it's still WAY cheaper than hiring American workers in US. No doubt about that.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#367

Post by jsprogrammer »

kgwgk wrote: post #345
jsprogrammer wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, it does. I wonder why? At the least, the shareholders hold the cash hostage. They are among the first to be paid out in event of a liquidation. Perhaps a better question is, how are shareholders not a cost?

Shareholders are the last to be paid in the event of a liquidation (equity is by definition assets minus liabilities) and dividends are not a cost (unlike interest payments).

They are far ahead of the employees though. Employees have no claims on assets (except for unpaid, contractual provisions such as earned wages) in event of a liquidation.

Dividends are a cost to the organization. They are resources that will never be recovered. However, from the point of view of the shareholder it is personal income. If dividends are not a cost to the organization, what are they?

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#368

Post by kgwgk »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #367
kgwgk wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shareholders are the last to be paid in the event of a liquidation (equity is by definition assets minus liabilities) and dividends are not a cost (unlike interest payments).

They are far ahead of the employees though. Employees have no claims on assets (except for unpaid, contractual provisions such as earned wages) in event of a liquidation. Dividends are a cost to the organization. They are resources that will never be recovered. However, from the point of view of the shareholder it is personal income. If dividends are not a cost to the organization, what are they?

Shareholders are not "far ahead" of employees, because there is no one behind shareholders. Employees get what they are owed before shareholders see a cent. Why should they get more than that? Maybe you think customers should get a piece of the pie, too? Or competitors?

Dividends are the distribution of a part of the profit (or maybe retained earnings, if the current earnings are not enough) to shareholders. Profit is what is left from revenue after costs. Unless you want to redefine the basic accounting terms, dividends cannot be a cost.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#369

Post by 72deluxe »

AlexeyBrin wrote: post #361
72deluxe wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the heads up. I will definitely have to get that downloaded and sorted under a VM some time soon. Is it really just the Pro version? Is distribution of software created with it limited?

Yes it is the Pro version with a different name, no time limitation ... You can read more on Microsoft VS page: http://www.visualstudio.com/products/visual-studio-community... Small excerpt: Visual Studio Community 2013 includes all the great functionality of Visual Studio Professional 2013, designed and optimized for individual developers, students, open source contributors, and small teams.

Thanks very much, the individual developer tis I! Thanks!

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#370

Post by runeks »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #354
runeks wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely, the Apple employees use Apple's property when creating value. The employees -- presumably -- don't own the desk they sit at, the computer they use at work, the building in which they work. And they don't pay the bill from TSMC when wafers need to be produced -- Apple pays for all these things. It is able to do this, in part, because it has hoarded cash. I'm sure you wouldn't claim that it's possible for the e…

Does not mean it is optimal, only (potentially) marginally useful.

No thing is ever optimal. We can always improve things. But I don't see why we should let perfection be the enemy of good.
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