The iPhones sales are slowing, so are the iPads and the Macs. And the Apple Watch business is still quite young and not yet proven as the next big thing. Apple Music is nice, but no one cares. And Apple TV is still trying to create content distribution deals to become a more valuable box in the home.
So what does Apple do next? Do they really want to build their own car or would they be better off licensing their technology into other car companies? Do they want to shift from content distributor to content creator and acquire a media company like Viacom? Do they want to expand further into the cloud and enterprise space and consider buying a company like Microsoft, if such a move could get government approvals? What will the next iteration of Apple be?
The car business seems to be on their radar although I would prefer they license their technology to others or offer their Siri and Music services in a subscription model like Sirius; perhaps a Sirius acquisition might be a nice alternative to their expansion in the auto industry. The entertainment business is quite fickle. And owning a content network might make it harder to build a fully aggregated Apple TV business. Is a Netflix acquisition too rich for their blood? The cloud and enterprise space could be more lucrative as Apple products are more embraced in commercial and industrial spaces. Microsoft may not be interested in a merger but maybe IBM might listen to a bigger future together.
What is clear is that Apple has the dollars and the resources to build its next new thing. It continues to make a nice revenue and profit each quarter, but as growth in its mainstay products slow, it needs to expand into new spaces. Change is coming and Apple needs to continue to evolve and change too.
