10-09-2011, 08:49 PM
iChat should be no shock... it was part of AOL when they sold it to Steve Case - as the defunct Apple Dealer/Service Network software, and dumped for just $250,000 - because dealers baulked at seeing parts in COLOR, and having to put an extremely expensive Mac II or better into service for it, when an SE/30 was the preferred platform for speed, cost and space.
That was 1987.
$250,000 that permitted Steve Case to build a market cap of $223 billion market cap, buy Time/Warner Bros & all of Ted Turner's properties - everything from WTBS to the Atlanta Braves, and it all CRASHED --- because Steve Case & the rest of them didn't foresee DSL or cable!!!
It FELL from $223 billion to a mere $3 billion in just 10 years. They lost $99 billion in cash as well.
Compare the reverse --
When Apple acquired NeXT, and Jobs, for $400 million in December, 1996, Apple's market cap was $3 billion. Today it's $342 billion. But just a handful of weeks ago, @ $422 per share, Apple reached a market capitalization of $395.6 billion, with $76 billion of cash on the balance sheet. That figure should rise to $100 billion cash when 3rd Q reports are unveiled.
And to think Apple had to license back that software to create eWorld, in Dec 1992...
That was 1987.
$250,000 that permitted Steve Case to build a market cap of $223 billion market cap, buy Time/Warner Bros & all of Ted Turner's properties - everything from WTBS to the Atlanta Braves, and it all CRASHED --- because Steve Case & the rest of them didn't foresee DSL or cable!!!
It FELL from $223 billion to a mere $3 billion in just 10 years. They lost $99 billion in cash as well.
Compare the reverse --
When Apple acquired NeXT, and Jobs, for $400 million in December, 1996, Apple's market cap was $3 billion. Today it's $342 billion. But just a handful of weeks ago, @ $422 per share, Apple reached a market capitalization of $395.6 billion, with $76 billion of cash on the balance sheet. That figure should rise to $100 billion cash when 3rd Q reports are unveiled.
And to think Apple had to license back that software to create eWorld, in Dec 1992...