Apple’s former boss John Sculley has just announced that the company should set its sights on using its huge financial reserves to acquire big-name companies.
Apple could transform the landscape of e-commerce by acquiring eBay
He’s suggesting that Apple should be looking to e-commerce, as the company has the potential to radically transform the "whole landscape of e-commerce". eBay was one of the names that cropped up during his announcement.
Nevertheless, Carl Icahn, activist investor, wants to see the company buying back stock, but Mr Sculley, (chief executive of Apple between 1983 and 1993) disagrees.
Sculley said that Apple is all about shaping markets and building high quality products. Meanwhile, Carl Icahn is busily persuading Apple’s current chief executive Tim Cook, to create larger dividends and buy back more stock.
However, John Sculley thinks the company needs to keep investing in the future and building the brand. Making big acquisitions using a strategic approach could play an important role in this.
John Sculley is well known for his “forcing out” of Steve Jobs from Apple. Looking back, he said that his decision was down to a lack of experience on his part. He didn’t share Job’s vision for future products at the time.
Whilst he has left the firm and has no insider knowledge, Scully says that he wonders whether it’s time for Apple to change and explore new possibilities for its growth strategy.
Is it time to for Apple to change tack?
Apple has never traditionally been a company known for acquiring large scale firms. It has chosen to buy up smaller enterprises and fold them into its business instead. Apple acquired Siri in 2010 to provide an integrated personal assistant for its iPads and iPhones.
What would happen if Apple took technologies such as its digital ticket system Passbook and fingerprint recognition – and then applied it to eBay? What if they also bought PayPal and integrated it with that?
The outcomes could be rather interesting and there could well be a shift in the world of e-commerce. This is all conjecture of course, but it’s certainly worth keeping an eye on. Sellers are already used to regular eBay updates to policies. So, we can only guess how this hypothetical scenario would change selling on eBay.
