iCar, iDoc: Apple seeks new growth drivers

For several months, Apple is exploring many avenues for acquiring companies outside its traditional scope. Automobiles, medical devices .. one day iCar or iDoc? This seems less impossible.

Adrian Perica . This name probably tells you nothing and yet it is now one of the key figures of Apple although it does not appear in the chart key executives. Mr. Perica has served as patron of mergers & acquisitions in the Californian company for 18 months and he travels the globe in search of better opportunities for redemption in all areas of IT ( big data , search engines , data analysis , mapping software , new generations of chips ... ) . And Mr. Perica not idle . If Apple remains a dwarf in its acquisitions policy against other technology giants like Google and Intel, accelerates the pace quickly. During the last quarter of the last fiscal year , Apple has invested $ 525 million in acquisitions or twice throughout the previous year. Many of these acquisitions are discrete or secret .

Off the beaten track

But not in the traditional scope of activities that Mr. Perica work only. As written by our colleagues Thomas Lee and David Baker of the San Francisco Chronicle, "Apple sees bigger. Much larger

" . Indeed , Apple is aware of the coming slowdown in the growth of markets for smartphones and tablets. Certainly , there are still large deposits but this market will soon become primarily a replacement market in many countries , the rate of equipment becoming very important. Also, the company plans new industries. One obviously thinks projects connected iWatch watch TV or iTV but Apple could also go very far from their traditional perimeter and try to position themselves in the " next big thing " that will certainly connected objects but not only. Under these conditions, why not imagine being involved in the cars of tomorrow , including an area where Google quietly advance its pawns .

Musk driving innovation

According to a source from SF Chronicle, Mr. Perica have met Tesla boss Elon Musk just last spring after several analyzes suggest that Apple makes the acquisition of Tesla. The links between the electric automaker (at today stratospheric crazy market capitalization ) and Apple are old and the two companies share many values. Meanwhile, the CEO of Tesla - Elon Musk - is an extremely charismatic character with a great sense of innovation , marketing and many other qualities . It is also a patron a little " Rock & Roll " and many now describe as the most like Steve Jobs. A portrait of him is available to subscribers of the magazine at this address . Also, beyond the complementarity of trades, a Elon Musk at the head of the innovation of Apple / Tesla is far from being a crazy idea and it is supported by many American and European analysts , which also partly explains the market madness around the Tesla action. Certainly a redemption would be a radical transformation of Apple but the Cupertino company. 

Dr. Apple and its 160 billion 

 The other Apple investment area covers everything related to health and well -being. Apple hiring vengeance doctors, engineers, scientists from not technology but the medical world for both development projects , for patents but also lobbying with the almighty Food & Drug Administration issuing authorizations for placing on the market of such products. Meetings multiply between the two parties to discuss mobile medical applications under the leadership of Jeff Williams , another important part of Apple and unknown. The company also files patent applications in these areas, including measurement of heart and blood signals to prevent the onset of a heart attack . All this is done under the leadership of Mr. Holman , a former Lucasfilm , co- inventor of the THX technology, which is arrived at Apple in 2011. 

We see, juice skull at full side of Cupertino and the prospect of an iCar, an iDoc, an iWatch, an iTV and others do not appear to be only fantasy. Especially when we know that the company has over $ 160 billion of cash. Make to shareholders is a possibility and Apple will use it in part. But such was not the will of Steve Jobs and this is not a feature of Apple's genes. We must innovate, innovate and still use his billion for this purpose is certainly not the most foolish strategy.