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Businesses

Submission + - Apple's $15 billion cash hoard

Submitted by schmaustech
schmaustech writes: Pop quiz: Which tech company has the most cash?

(A) IBM (IBM)
(B) Hewlett-Packard (HPQ)
(C) Intel (INTC)
(D) Google (GOOG)
(E) Apple (AAPL)

If you picked E, congratulations. Apple's $15.4 billion stash is indeed the biggest of the group, putting the iPod maker in the elite ranks of well-heeled Fortune 500 tech companies. (Only Microsoft (MSFT) and Cisco Systems (CSCO) stockpile more.) And lately the stacks have been rising fast; Apple has added $5 billion to its coffers in the past year alone, according to regulatory filings.

Unlike Microsoft and Cisco though, Apple (AAPL) doesn't pay a dividend, doesn't make big acquisitions, and doesn't buy back many shares. Last month the company reported that since 1999, it has spent a relatively paltry $217 million to repurchase stock, though its board has authorized $500 million for that purpose.

So what does CEO Steve Jobs have in mind for all those greenbacks?

http://bigtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2007/12/07/apples-15-billion-cash-hoard/
Wine

Submission + - OS X Leopard now can natively load Windows Files.

Submitted by
Steven Edwards
Steven Edwards writes: "PE Files were rejected on Tiger but now can be loaded natively on Leopard, which is interesting to me because I don't think that this is just a hold over from EFI support because the behavior is new. I think it may be a sign of future addition of a Win32 subsystem to OS X. Check the following URLs for the detailed technical information.

http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2007-November/060846.html
http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2007-November/060851.html

I think this behavior may be a sign of a future addition of a Win32 subsystem to OS X. I think the powers that be at apple have decided that they are missing the pie that Parallels, VMware and CodeWeavers are getting. If you combine the value of all three products, I expect its adding up to a good chunk of change they view as "lost" every month. Having a system like Wine that runs in a clunky Classic like mode would mean better user tie-in than having to reboot with BootCamp."

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It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.

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