So these GT guys finally accepting they could not make Sapphire crystal meeting the standards of Apple! Basically furnace seller. All these furnaces to be transported across the globe and may be after few months later Apple can sell their products with Sapphire glass.
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Apple and GT Advanced Reach Deal to End Partnership, GT to Sell Furnaces to Pay Debt
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Some big assumptions there.
1) that Apple didn't vet their partner here heavily. Does that sound like Apple?
2) that the CEO of GT believed they couldn't deliver and bold faced lied about it.
You really have no proof of either.
Wish Apple would have decided otherwise
God knows Apple has the money to help GT survive and continue to correct whatever milestone issue they've had.... With Apple's cash reserve, sapphire glass could be on the iphone/ipad/iwatch and possibly be able to keep the job of hundreds of GT employees....
It's so sad to see all those folks filing for unemployment benefits... and God knows how long it would take them to find a new job...
I know it's a lot of money to consider... but this is still a decision that makes me disappointed in Apple management given the amount of cash they got. Apple has been supportive of "Made in US" and bringing jobs back to America... Since the chapter 11 filing, I was really counting on Mr. Cook to make a decision that saves a thousand US jobs.
God knows Apple has the money to help GT survive and continue to correct whatever milestone issue they've had.... With Apple's cash reserve, sapphire glass could be on the iphone/ipad/iwatch and possibly be able to keep the job of hundreds of GT employees....
It's so sad to see all those folks filing for unemployment benefits... and God knows how long it would take them to find a new job...
I know it's a lot of money to consider... but this is still a decision that makes me disappointed in Apple management given the amount of cash they got. Apple has been supportive of "Made in US" and bringing jobs back to America... Since the chapter 11 filing, I was really counting on Mr. Cook to make a decision that saves a thousand US jobs.
The above, IMO, assumes a few things:
1. That Apple "cracked" sapphire in phone displays (excuse the pun) and was ready to go to full-scale production.
2. That nobody could meet Apple's quantity demands, and therefore they had to partner with someone that could manufacture sapphire on a large scale.
Now, #1 might very well be true, but from what I have read, sapphire production - especially on a large scale - was not GTAT's specialty (they made the furnaces that made sapphire, not the sapphire itself). As such, they seemed to have been a poor choice to meet #2 and Tim Cook's expertise in production makes me believe that he would not have chosen them for this role.
Typical American business. They would rather go bankrupt than put in the effort needed to meet high production quality standards. No matter what happens the GT executives make millions, so what do they care?
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I agree with your sentiment but Apple has no expertise in Sapphire manufacture. If they bought GT they would be trying to meet production standards with the same set of managers and engineers who failed this time. It would be a boondoggle that wouldn't be assured of saving any jobs at all.
What I'd really like to see Apple do is move production of their own products back to the US. Start with low volume computers - they've already done it with the Mac Pro so move on to other desktops and then laptops.
Moveing iPhone production to the US would be a decade long undertaking. Not likely IMO, but damn it would be nice to see the US economy heat up with every iPhone release.
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I agree with your sentiment but Apple has no expertise in Sapphire manufacture. If they bought GT they would be trying to meet production standards with the same set of managers and engineers who failed this time. It would be a boondoggle that wouldn't be assured of saving any jobs at all.
What I'd really like to see Apple do is move production of their own products back to the US. Start with low volume computers - they've already done it with the Mac Pro so move on to other desktops and then laptops.
Moveing iPhone production to the US would be a decade long undertaking. Not likely IMO, but damn it would be nice to see the US economy heat up with every iPhone release.
Typical American business. They would rather go bankrupt than put in the effort needed to meet high production quality standards. No matter what happens the GT executives make millions, so what do they care?
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I agree with your sentiment but Apple has no expertise in Sapphire manufacture. If they bought GT they would be trying to meet production standards with the same set of managers and engineers who failed this time. It would be a boondoggle that wouldn't be assured of saving any jobs at all.
What I'd really like to see Apple do is move production of their own products back to the US. Start with low volume computers - they've already done it with the Mac Pro so move on to other desktops and then laptops.
Moveing iPhone production to the US would be a decade long undertaking. Not likely IMO, but damn it would be nice to see the US economy heat up with every iPhone release.
If the political will were their , it wouldn't take a decade to move those jobs back where the belong.
Might be quicker, but I'm skeptical it could be done even in a decade to be honest. We no longer have the required expertise to build something like iPhones in the US. We don't even have enough engineers to oversee the assembly lines.
But I do agree that political will is the biggest obstacle. Even a hugely popular small change to the tax code to increase the cost of outsourcing is a non-starter in today's congress. Do voters care? Nope!
With the 1/2 Billion $$$ investment, Apple clearly believed that GTAT could deliver a sapphires display that met their stringent requirements worthy of an iPhone display (and also displace Gorilla Glass).
What convinced Apple's people in the room that GTAT could deliver? GT had no history of sapphire production that could be used by Apple as a gauge for measuring any level of engineering design, technological advancement, and manufacturing proficiency.
So something or someone convinced them to make the investment without the necessary historical data.
Manufacturing, running, and maintaining the furnaces? Really?
Yeah, the 700+ workers at the Arizona plant didn't get shafted, It was the shareholders who had 1% of their stock portfolio in GTAT.
Sarbanes-Oxley has to do with internal controls, not reporting requirements. You won't see R&D cost commentary on a 10K that lists exactly what it was for. You'd at the very most, if your lucky, get a commentary about "increased product material research" or something.
it was 1%, how did you guess? i consider employees as shareholders of a company by the way... especially in a start up environment.
I'm sure Apple is whispering in the ears of their new sapphire suppliers... "Psst... i know where you can get some sapphire furnaces... cheap!"
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I don't think this is necessarily the case. I believe it as more of an R&D investment than a supply agreement. Apple wanted to push the boundaries and see if it could be done. Without finding a willing partner to do that R&D, they wouldn't know, since manufacturing sapphire glass is well outside of Apple's core competency.
It could have been done better where it didn't end up as a failed partnership.
Hence the Chapter 11 filing and some amicable agreement between the two companies whose details will remain sealed within the court system.
Shameful, not sure who to blame here. The ones that suffer are the Employees. All the big shots made out really well, they sold lots of stock before the sheeet hit the fan, they obviously knew it was coming. I wonder if they will be investigated for that, insider trading perhaps? Martha Stewart went to jail for that! Here goes a company that was generating some US jobs along with a unique product that will just have to be made in Chine instead. China will probably buy those furnaces so they can mass produce a cheap knockout product. Well at least we'll give Apple some credit for trying to do this in the US and not just outsourcing it to China. Maybe next time they need to put more money into R&D.
-Mike
-Mike
I highly doubt Apple will be buying the furnaces nor do they want them. Apple does not want to be in the business of manufacturing, they much rather contract reliable OEM supplier to do that for them. The problem is the quantity of goods that Apple wants is so large that very few manufactures could fill their needs. Apple sometimes provides a "little" help to bring the OEM supplier up to speed. They've done this with Foxconn before, etc. I'm sure Apple is talking to potential OEM's to partner with that is willing to take over the operations (that are capable & reliable). Rubicon or perhaps Corning comes to mind. This is assuming that the GTAT technology is still viable for large scale production.
Then you'd be wrong. This wasn't a start-up environment, it was an expansion environment. None of these factory workers got stock options, or if they did they were tiny token amounts.
I make an educated assumption based on GTAT being an established publicly traded stock with decent daily volume for a company of its size. It wasn't some start-up with a close group of investors or founders. Lots of people bought some shares for their portfolio when it looked like they were going to be a primary supplier for iPhone displays, that's why the stock appreciated, but I highly doubt anyone put their whole net worth into it, or even a significan portion of it. And, if someone has the disposable income to have a "portfolio" to use in the stock market in the first place, then they are doing just fine.
shareholders was not spoken in the hard sense of meaning stock shares but having a vested interest in the company.
Apple can buy the furnaces and the whole company without even the board of directors have any clue.