Tim Cook at the Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet conference: what to remember

Today, in a not so common exercise
that this outside of the usual stock market meetings,Tim Cook
spoke in front of representatives of Apple investors. It was
during a conference entitled "Technology and the Internet" organized by Goldman
Sachs. Doubly controlled exercise of course: financially first,
Apple is a listed company and should not give information outside of
certain specific time of year and from a cultural point of view since Apple
takes great care to never talk about his projects, only the products
during official announcements.

The conference was broadcast live (sound) and will be available shortly
probably on Apple's page.

Tim Cook was asked about the current topics that we imagine:
finance of course, acquisitions but also range of products and
cannibalization, iPad mini vs iPad, iCloud, iMessage, Apple Stores. Here are the
main points that we retained:

• Regarding the size of the iPhone screen, Tim Cook started by
  indicate that we should not try to guess what Apple was going to do
  through his answers, because he wouldn't say anything ;-). Then went on to talk about
  the quality of the screens and that the size is not the only parameter, the quality
  of this one is too and he called OLED screens horrible,
  , adding only one thing: Apple will never make it a "low-end" product.
  gamme" ("Crappy")

• Asked about the possible cannibalization of the ranges (MacBook by iPad by
  example): Tim Cook clearly said that Apple was not looking at the problem
  thus, but rather by saying to themselves that if they themselves did not cannibalize their
  range, others would!

• The iPad mini even if it reduces margins (it was a financial question
  we suspect 😉) is a major product in Apple's range.

• Apple's acquisitions of companies have been in recent years in
  rate of one every two months on average (that seems a lot
  retrospectively…) and have a goal: to bring back talented people
  in Apple teams and have them work in their field of
  competence, but on products from the Apple universe. Apple has already reviewed
  ed acquisitions of large companies (and continues), but never they
  have never passed the 'test' of knowing how to bring in additional income,
  but people capable of contributing to product development
  d’Apple.

• Apple is not (anymore) a company whose activity is "hardware", but
  now a company which mainly operates in "service". Examples to
  support: revenues from this area reached $3.75 billion
  in the last quarter (apps, music, storage, iTunes Music. Thus, the sale
  from a terminal to a client is not an outcome for Tim Cook, but the
  start of a relationship

• Apple paid out $1 billion to developers just on
  last month, bringing the total to 8 billion.

• It is always good to clarify this, especially in front of financiers with
  riveted on the quarterly results and the stock price: “The
  Apple's conduct is entirely oriented towards the long term"

For those who would like to listen to the conference,it's here.

founder of the site. Computer engineer and Internet specialist where he has held various positions of responsibility, Laurent has been passionate about mobility since the arrival of "PDAs" in the 90s. Journalist for 4 years for the magazine Team Palmtops (Posse Presse) and author of several books on the iPad published by Pearson.