Apple, Square Acquisition Talks Went South Over $3B Offer [Update: Nope]

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Huh? I never mentioned an article, and I'm certainly not talking about 2011.

Yes, I referenced the article from back in 2011, in my reply to you in post #80. The point was to illustrate how long it had been since Apple had tried to acquire Dropbox to the point when iCloud Drive might actually come to market. The point of using that Dropbox scenario was to illustrate how Apple deciding to do something doesn't automatically kill a player (like Square) in a year or less.

There are people in this thread talking about everyone being able to pay and be paid with Apple Pay such that credit cards may be extinct in one year and Square will be dead because Apple will go for those scraps too. I was trying to illustrate that Apple doesn't usually move that fast even if they wanted Square's business (nor do I expect every person in the world who uses credit cards to own iPhone 6's before the year is up).

I certainly hope that iCloud Drive is excellent. I just don't have as much hope as others seem to have in both iCloud replacing Dropbox or Apple Pay replacing all credit cards everywhere or biting heavily into the smallish business where Square tends to play.

 

[balamw]

I just don't have as much hope as others seem to have in both iCloud replacing Dropbox

Agreed 100% on this.

Dropbox is certainly wonderful, but each of it's competitors that I also use have their benefits too. I am afraid that I'm so heavily into Google's ecosystem via gmail that Google Drive is here to stay for me. My company also uses Office 365 so OneDrive is also here to stay...

Not all of my favorite iOS apps support iCloud/Dropbox/Google Drive/OneDrive so I'm stuck with files on all of them.

Of all the ones I use OneDrive is the most fragile I keep having to rebuilds local copy of it's files and that sucks.

Sigh.

B

 

[DerekAndonian]

When iPads get NFC lots of POS solutions for S&M businesses will only need the app and they will be set.

So stores will be able to sell whips and handcuffs with an iPad app?? Fantastic!

 

[billystlyes]

NOPE. He's such a smug a hole.

 

[zipa]

Who's going to want to fumble with a credit card or a dongle that works 75% of the time when you can just use TouchID?

The 95 % or so of earth's population who hasn't got an iPhone?

 

[Pakaku]

Apple just disrupted square's business model. Now, we'll "soon" have a significant number of people who won't be carrying credit cards, but will instead be paying via their phones -- how do you think that's going to affect square? Sooner or later, someone is going to create a portable NFC Apple pay terminal (maybe something that works via bluetooth?), and that's really going to screw with square's business model.

And why can't an iPhone just 'talk' to another iPhone to make a payment?

 

[zipa]

And why can't an iPhone just 'talk' to another iPhone to make a payment?

They could, but it's not very convenient. Nor safe. Wouldn't be very hard to just grab the phone and run.

 

[Mr Bigs]

Ouch, if Apple puts out a small reader that links through Apple Pay then Square could be hurting.

If this were true the why would Apple attempt to acquire them ?

 

[IJ Reilly]

I can't imagine that Square will be able to maintain its $6 billion valuation after a successful launch of Apple Pay.

That valuation is pretty slippery anyway. Square isn't publicly traded, so the equity value is based pretty much entirely on what the VC owners and insiders think the company might be worth at an IPO, and that in turn is based on revenue growth, not earnings (which they don't have). It's a very speculative number.

 

[wilhelmer]

Love the "[Update: Nope]" in the title

 

[the8thark]

Can someone tell me why Jim Dalrymple is so arrogant?
Other analysts are guessing as much as he is, but at least they try to explain their rumours so we have as much information as they know or are willing to give us. But Jim Dalrymple is just like NO and if you don't like it, I don't care.

Because of this he is one of the worst analysts out there.

 

[Nebrie]

Can someone tell me why Jim Dalrymple is so arrogant?
Other analysts are guessing as much as he is, but at least they try to explain their rumours so we have as much information as they know or are willing to give us. But Jim Dalrymple is just like NO and if you don't like it, I don't care.

Because of this he is one of the worst analysts out there.

Because he's not guessing. He has high level Apple sources who gives him yes or no answers and that's it. The source obviously can't give more details without outing themselves to Apple Internal Security.

 

[the8thark]

Because he's not guessing. He has high level Apple sources who gives him yes or no answers and that's it. The source obviously can't give more details without outing themselves to Apple Internal Security.

That information would be clearly covered by NDAs thus would not be allowed to be said. That's if he indeed does have inside information. We all know how tight Apple are with this sort of thing. If you are in the know inside Apple you are not even allowed to utter one word to the wrong person after you've signed that NDA. And Apple would make everyone in the know sign NDAs.

So he is either guessing or breaking NDAs.

 

[Pakaku]

They could, but it's not very convenient. Nor safe. Wouldn't be very hard to just grab the phone and run.

That would be the case either way if you intend on using Apple's payment system. The only difference in this scenario would be using someone else's iPhone as an NFC machine.

 

[coolfilmaker]

Apple wouldn't have anything to gain except for IP and I doubt Square has much of that.

 

[Ceviche Lover]

That information would be clearly covered by NDAs thus would not be allowed to be said. That's if he indeed does have inside information. We all know how tight Apple are with this sort of thing. If you are in the know inside Apple you are not even allowed to utter one word to the wrong person after you've signed that NDA. And Apple would make everyone in the know sign NDAs.

So he is either guessing or breaking NDAs.

He doesn't guess, he's never been wrong yet with this 'nope' or 'yep' responses. He is well connected within Apple, which is why Macrumors included his response in the article.

You're just jealous because you are not well-connected within Apple like he is, and just a regular schmuck behind a computer.

 

[the8thark]

He doesn't guess, he's never been wrong yet with this 'nope' or 'yep' responses. He is well connected within Apple, which is why Macrumors included his response in the article.

You're just jealous because you are not well-connected within Apple like he is, and just a regular schmuck behind a computer.

He is breaking NDA's according to you.
Call me a "regular schmuck" as much as you want. Sticks and stones . . . your insults don't hurt me.
You just said you believe he is breaking NDAs as he has inside information.

If I had the inside information he did I'd respect the NDAs and keep my mouth shut. I'm not jealous of him, I'm slightly disappointed, that Apple does nothing about him and that he keeps breaking NDAs. But in the grand scheme of things if people want to like him, that's their loss.

I won't ever like him because of what he represents and his lack of morals. But that's just me. I don't really care. I just wanted to share the facts to everyone, that's all.

 

[Gutwrench]

Update 7:00 PM PT: Jim Dalrymple has given one of his famous "Nope" responses to the Square/Apple acquisition rumors, suggesting that the two companies were not in talks about a possible acquisition.

On the rumor that Apple was in talks to buy Square
Posted on Friday, September 12th, 2014 at 7:02 pm. PT
Written by Jim Dalrymple
TechCrunch:

Separately, TechCrunch has heard from multiple sources that Square and Apple were recently in acquisition talks, but that Square walked away.

Nope.

Since it's a compound question/statement one does not know what the "nope" means. It could just as well "suggest" Square wasn't the one who walked away just as much as the two companies were not involved in talks. As far as I'm concerned the update is useless.

 

[kas23]

The 95 % or so of earth's population who hasn't got an iPhone?

And this same 95% of earth's population has a credit card though? Plus, the vast majority of Squares business is in the US, where the iPhone is fairly ubiquitous.

 

[MacBH928]

I just want to join the conversation and say that its wrong to think Apple crushes their competitors once they enter a new market. Apple failed a lot in the past or gave mediocre effort including:

iTunes Ping, MobileMe, AppleWorks, iWorks(is not a standard in office apps), AppleTV (Roku, WDTV still doing good IIRC), selling digital media (Netflix and Spotify still doing ok), The server market(which Apple quit), and Final Cut Pro which is not the standard in video editing AFAIK.

Square might have made a mistake, they might have not

 

[MacSince1990]

What a bunch of squares.

 

[bbydon]

Because of this he is one of the worst analysts out there.

He is not an analyst. He is a blogger.

 

[MacSince1990]

Frankly, the largest retailer in the world can take a long walk off of a short plank.

Have to agree with this. Screw Wal-Mart and its owners.

 

[Toltepeceno]

Because they believe based on other information that they have that they are worth way more? Not irrational at all.

As for Apple Pay being a better system, its two opposite ends of the stick. Square is all about allowing you to ACCEPT payments on your iPhone. Apple Pay is all about MAKING payments with your iPhone.

Bingo, it's not the same thing. They don't compete at all, how many people at garage s ales are going to be accepting apple pay? None.

 

[NMBob]

Can someone tell me why Jim Dalrymple is so arrogant?
Other analysts are guessing as much as he is, but at least they try to explain their rumours so we have as much information as they know or are willing to give us. But Jim Dalrymple is just like NO and if you don't like it, I don't care.

Because of this he is one of the worst analysts out there.

Have you ever read his website? He's about as far from arrogant as you can get.