Why Apple should buy Disney
12:38p ET April 19, 2011 (MarketWatch)
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The biggest failure of my life was being let go from an employer many years ago.
I was young, found the job boring and after a while I mentally checked out. As I realized that it would reflect poorly on me to leave so soon after I had started, I resolved to stay put for a set period of time -- and then I would quit.
I suppose the feeling was mutual, because my boss beat me to the punch and let me go. That failure left a permanent scar on me, and I resolved to never let it happen again. As a wise man once said, all you have is your name and your word.
I bring this up as I ponder the future of Apple , and I can't help but wonder if it will be soon face a crossroads not unlike the one it faced in the late '80s.
Back then, it failed. Macintosh computers were fantastic products, superior to PCs in most ways and yet they lost to Wintel-based systems. As innovation slowed, Apple allowed lower-price, commoditized competitors to beat them on price and customization. Apple fell into a morass from which it did not emerge until Steve Jobs returned to the company in the late '90s.
Today, Apple is approaching a similar crossroads as innovation begins to slow. The iPhone and iPad remain category killers, but you can already see Google's Droid-based competition and others nipping at their heels. Over time, hardware becomes commoditized. That's not a game Apple is positioned to -- or desires -- to win.
It's not clear where the company goes from here, with iPod, MacBook, iPhone and iPad at various stages along the maturation curve. It's not in their DNA to compete with Microsoft , IBM , and Hewlett-Packard in the services and enterprise world as that's traditionally a role for within the PC space.
Apple needs to make a big move into a new product category -- something as big as the first iPod, iPhone, or iPad, which brings us to its cash horde. Apple currently has about $60 billion in cash, and is projected to earn a ludicrous $50 billion in earnings (not revenue) over the next two years. That is going to become a bigger and bigger investor concern -- what can Apple possibly do with $100 billion?
There are, in my estimation, two options. First, they give it all back to investors in the form of a dividend or buy back their own stock to reduce the float. Or, conversely, they could buy something gigantic -- something that truly changes the game.
What should it buy? Increasingly, Apple is moving away from computing and toward the intersection of computing, communications, and media delivery. That's Steve Job's vision of a post-PC world, and his company is already world-class at computing, communications, and media delivery. The missing piece of the puzzle, of course, is content.
Enter Disney . The music industry has already accepted that they're at the mercy of iTunes. The television industry had more time to respond to the threat of Netflix and is fighting back with Hulu and other initiatives. Google has YouTube, Amazon is muscling its way into the space, and now Facebook is going to give it a shot.
It's clear this fight won't be as easy for Apple as the music score was. What better way for Apple to show its dominance than to buy the House of Mouse? Steve Jobs is already on the Board of Directors, he loves brands, and Disney stands for creativity, wonder, and imagination -- not unlike Apple.
Steve Jobs is already the Walt Disney of our age. We might as well make it official.
Minyanville contributor Conor Sen is a private investor currently based in Atlanta, Georgia and has a position in Apple.
