Apple Considering a Break-Up?

rlthomps-1 writes "Despite Apple's recent sucesses with the iTunes music store and the latest round of PowerBooks, TheDeal.com has an analysis of the options that Apple investors might force the company to take, including a breakup into separate hardware and software companies, a merger with both Universal and Pixar, or a leveraged buyout by private investors. Their analysis points to Palm as a case study for a successful breakup of a company that made both operating systems and hardware in a competitive market. Could separate Apple hardware and software companies revitalize the brand and challenge Microsoft's monopoly?" He forgot to call Apple "beleaguered;" however, he did say their decades-old position is "untenable."

Comments

Re:Uh, really?

[thesatirist]

Better get going...

Agreed

[Kligson]

Yeah, one of Apple's selling points is no-brainer compatability with other Apple products. Having seperate companies would have to hurt them there.

One another note, how are smaller, specialized companies more stable than larger diversified companies. Isn't diversification a basic principle of business? I'd say Apple has that part down pretty well.

You can read an interesting piece from an analyst at the University of Iowa here. (It's the google-ized html of a pdf.) The summary: Apple stock is nice because of their diversity as a company. Here's a quote:

Diversification in product offerings not only draws new customers, but also deepens the commitment of existing users.

But then we knew that already. ;)

Palm? Successful?

[mkelley]

"Their analysis points to Palm as a case study for a successful breakup of a company"

It's hard to call the Palm breakup success, as their stock has dropped $50 in the past 52 weeks and is hovering around $10. Where as Apple's stock has only dropped $10 during the same period and is around $15-$17. Apple is in a lot better shape financially than Palm has been in a while.