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Apple May Invest Billions of Dollars In Toshiba's Memory Chip Business (bloomberg.com)
Toshiba shares recovered after Japan's national broadcaster reported that Apple is considering an investment of several billion dollars in its semiconductor unit, raising the prospect that the struggling electronics conglomerate will get a much-needed cash infusion. From a report: Toshiba has put its memory chips business up for sale to make up for a writedown of 716.6 billion yen ($6.56 billion) in its U.S. nuclear equipment operations. One option being considered is an investment accompanied by Toshiba holding shares, so that a majority of the semiconductor unit will be held by U.S. and Japanese interests, satisfying the respective governments, NHK said.
so how serious is this?
These things is why I hate the market, its a bunch of itchy crackheads reacting on hearsay and rumor
Yikes, so much wrongness in one post. The deal might be bad for Apple, but not for any of those reasons.
Boy, Space Nutters get so angry when they have to face reality.
Apple's doing this to ensure they have access to memory for their iPhones and other products. Want to bet the goal is to tie up the entire production of the types of memory that Apple uses?
No, Apple's doing this because otherwise they're stuck between a rock and hard place - either buy substandard memory or give money to Samsung.
Toshiba is the #2 flash memory manufacturer. Samsung is #1. If Toshiba goes under, Samsung dominates the NAND industry with close to 50% market share (even more for high-speed NAND), and can start to dictate pricing to companies which need to buy large quantities of NAND - like Apple. So it's in Apple's best interest to make sure Toshiba stays around and kicking and manufacturing NAND.
Actually, the main problem here is fraud, but it's true that the high investment costs of nuclear power plants are a huge contributing factor. But that's so blatant in this case that it hardly needs anyone pointing it out.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The deal might also be quite good for Apple, if they can find someone else to buy it off them (while guarantying them memory chips at a really good price).
I do agree that for Apple to hold onto the chip factory would be a diffusion of focus, and thus bad. Acting as a middle-man and taking cheap chips instead of a high purchase price, however, might be a real win. *IF* they can find someone really good to purchase/run the plant.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
IMFT and Hynix stuff isn't bad, although IMFT's future is in doubt.
You realize what the "secure" in "secure digital" means, right?
Apple's doing this to ensure they have access to memory for their iPhones and other products. Want to bet the goal is to tie up the entire production of the types of memory that Apple uses?
No, Apple's doing this because otherwise they're stuck between a rock and hard place - either buy substandard memory or give money to Samsung.
Exactly!
No, they're not bad if you pay for the good shit. But Samsung provides the best, and they really aren't gouging on prices as much as they could.
Apple avoiding Samsung for memory is cutting their nose off to spite their face. It's the same with them passing over Samsung for displays.
After what Apple did to GT Advanced, Toshiba better get it in writing,
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-gt-advanced-tech-bankruptcy-apple-idUSKBN0IR2G220141107