GT Advanced's Failure Reveals the High Stakes Risk of Becoming an Apple Supplier

[TimelessOne]

Lol....
That is preposterous. Obviously, Apple has made MANY similar deals... yet this is the first & only time we have heard of a company being so completely torn apart by such a deal.
Makes it fairly obvious who was the point of failure.
But besides ponying up the money to buy their equipment, hire their employees, and create their entire new businesses plan moving forward and single handedly make it possible, you think they should've ALSO made a safety net in case they couldn't deliver on their promises?? Hahahaha!!!!
Exactly how much more coddling should they do??
Both companies deserved to bear SOME risk, despite what you might think.

I think this is the only time it gotten this large. But sad fact of the matter chances are many other smaller companies have been destroyed by Apple.
This is not saying Apple is alone in this. It is sadly more often large companies like Apple do this to smaller ones. Make huge promise relay on them be nieve and have a much smaller legal staff so write some horribly one side contracts knowing that the smaller guy can not read threw it all and chances are will miss some of the gotchas.

Go read up on what apple did the FL the nand memory market in the pass. There where some pretty under handed and chances are unethical things apple has done. Remember ethical and legal are not the same thing. Most huge companies you see you should start off assuming they are unethical until proven otherwise. Apple has shown it holds true more than once.

 

[Tycho24]

I think this is the only time it gotten this large. But sad fact of the matter chances are many other smaller companies have been destroyed by Apple.
This is not saying Apple is alone in this. It is sadly more often large companies like Apple do this to smaller ones. Make huge promise relay on them be nieve and have a much smaller legal staff so write some horribly one side contracts knowing that the smaller guy can not read threw it all and chances are will miss some of the gotchas.

Go read up on what apple did the FL the nand memory market in the pass. There where some pretty under handed and chances are unethical things apple has done. Remember ethical and legal are not the same thing. Most huge companies you see you should start off assuming they are unethical until proven otherwise. Apple has shown it holds true more than once.

Hmmm...
I'd postulate that if any small companies have had to shut down due to actions by Apple, it would be because they went into competition with them, NOT because their deals with Apple turned out to not be lucrative. (I'm willing to listen to any examples to the contrary) From what I've seen... companies make money hand over fist supplying for Apple... & even not having a direct connection with Apple, but merely specializing in creating accessories for their products seems to be such a thriving industry, I hesitate to call it "cottage".
I refuse to take the single point of data, that GT Advanced failed, & extrapolate that it must mean "it's a bad financial decision to work with Apple", when there are soooooooo many examples to the contrary.

 

[MacSince1990]

Here's a moral of this story: Don't sign a contract with an industry giant unless you are absolutely 100% certain you can fulfill it, especially if it contains terms that are onerous and one sided and has severe penalties for failure.

I think the real moral of the story is be careful while investing. If I had to guess, a lot more investors were affected than the one or two executives who made this decision.

 

[k4rrjin]

Didn't Apple invest a couple of cool hundred millions in GT Advanced - and now you are telling me they wanted something in return? HOW DARE THEY!! BOO Apple, BOO for not being a charity and for actually wanting your supplier to deliver what they promised!! /s

 

[HyperZboy]

The fine folks at GT Advanced knew they had no track record... but they signed the contract anyway?

There aren't many companies doing large-scale sapphire production.

GTA said they could.

But they couldn't.

Apple totally ran the show here as detailed in court documents so they are equally to blame.

Anyone who claims otherwise obviously has not read the court documents.

Think about it. How often does a company like Apple offer to find jobs for a suppliers' failed company? Think about it.

Maybe a little Apple guilt involved here? Uh huh.

 

[samcraig]

Maybe a little Apple guilt involved here? Uh huh.

Corporations don't have guilt. What they might have are executives and PR professionals who know when/how to spin something or diffuse a crisis by changing the conversation.

 

[tbrinkma]

Instead of a success story, GT is an excellent example of what happens when journalists creates hype around rumor.

Everyone expected iPhone with sapphire screen. It didn't appeared so that's why GTAT stock was so low after iP6 premiere.

The GTAT stock certainly dropped after the iP6 announcement, but it didn't *crater* until they filed bankruptcy (just days after the CEO finalized a scheduled stock sale).