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Fallen Tech Star Imagination Technologies Up For Sale After Apple Row Bites (standard.co.uk)
UK chip designer Imagination Technologies -- which is in dispute with Apple, its largest customer -- has put itself up for sale. Shares in the company more than halved in April when Imagination said that Apple was to stop using its technology. From a report: The firm was regarded as a leading light in Britain's burgeoning tech sector, but ran into trouble when the phones giant, by far its biggest customer, said it would no longer rely on it for graphics design. Apple accounts for more than half of Imagination's revenues and last year held takeover talks with Imagination. Two parts of the business, MIPS and Ensigma, were already up for sale. Imagination said it has received "interest from a number of parties for a potential acquisition of the whole group." It is in "preliminary discussions" with the aid of bankers from Rothschild.
It's so common in business it's almost a tautology.
Essentially, if your business' continued existence depends entirely on one supplier or customer... it's not YOUR business, you just haven't figured it out yet. You're more like a department of the supplier or customer's company, in that you are entirely subject to their whims.
Sometimes - especially if it's a symbiotic relationship between companies that are essentially equally powerful - it works out. If, however, you're dealing with a megacorp like Apple and you're not also a megacorp, it's almost certain you'll eventually be crushed and then bought or replaced at some point.
Usually the smaller company is greedy, thinking very short term and/or complacent, and entirely caught off guard when the end finally comes.