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在上周五舉行的Business Insider大會上，前iPod硬件主管托尼?法德爾稱贊蘋果（Apple）首席執行官蒂姆?庫克是一位創新者。 不過，法德爾所說的創新，并不是指iPhone或iPad這樣的新型科技產品。庫克專長在于運營，在于生產iPhone和iPad的供應鏈。 法德爾舉例稱：“（庫克）對庫存進行的調整是驚人的。這是一種創新。” 似乎是為了強調這一點，上周三，彭博社（Bloomberg）的亞當?薩特里亞諾發表長文，大談蘋果公司在2014財年撥出105億美元資本性支出，用于購置鋁銑床、激光拋光機以及工業機器人等，其金額之高，創下歷史紀錄。 調研機構Asymco的賀拉斯?德迪歐稱：“蘋果公司將資金作為一種競爭優勢來部署。”德迪歐繪制了本文所附的圖表，將蘋果與三星（Samsung）兩家公司各自一年的支出與美國海軍12年建造一艘航空母艦的花費相比較。 德迪歐的一位筆名為“龍女王”的評論人士清楚的解釋了蒂姆?庫克的意圖： 三星公司的供應鏈很大一部分是自有的，如果我沒記錯的話，三星有自己的工廠，自己制造屏幕，還有其它一些部件很可能也是自行生產。
蘋果公司的供應鏈并非自有——蘋果無意涉足半導體或顯示屏制造業務，也不愿擁有攝像頭或電池生產廠。 但蘋果想同三星一樣，掌握控制權，并實現縱向一體化。因此，蘋果簽署了大量的合作伙伴協議，并購置了許多機床。蘋果對供應商說：“我們給你這些錢去建一座新廠房，在廠房里用我們買的機床（進行生產）。你們在這家工廠里生產的產品，都要賣給我們，不許賣給別人。”就這樣，這家供應商，或者其旗下的一家分公司，成為了蘋果公司的契約仆役。蘋果能享受縱向一體化企業集團的所有好處，而無需負擔任何相應的責任。 蘋果這種做法在整個供應鏈中一以貫之，從屏幕（夏普公司的IGZO技術）到鋁合金外殼的生產都是如此。唯有芯片（目前還）是個例外。不過，蘋果花錢讓供應商為其建造和運營芯片工廠，只是早晚的事。（財富中文網） 譯者：項航 |
At a Business Insider conference Friday, ex-iPod hardware chief Tony Fadell praised Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook as an innovator. But he wasn't talking about whizzy new products like the iPhone or iPad. Cook's expertise is in operations -- in the supply chain that produces those iPhones and iPads. "The number of turns he did on the inventory was amazing," said Fadell, by way of example. "That's a kind of innovation." As if to underscore that point, Bloomberg's Adam Satariano posted a long piece Wednesday about the record $10.5 billion in capital expenditures that Apple has earmarked in fiscal 2014 for things like aluminum milling machines, laser polishers and industrial robots. "Apple deploys capital as a competitive advantage," says Asymco's Horace Dediu, who produced the attached chart comparing what Apple and Samsung each spend in a year with what the U.S. Navy spends in a dozen year to build a single aircraft carrier. One of Dediu's commentators, writing under pseudonym Glaurung-Quena (literally, "dragon queen"), explained with admirable clarity what Tim Cook is up to: Samsung owns big chunks of their supply chain -- if I recall correctly, they have their own fabs, they make their own screens, and probably a bunch of other parts too. Apple doesn't own their supply chain outright -- they don't want to be in the semiconductor or screen making business, they don't want to have a camera or battery factory on their balance sheet. But they want the control and vertical integration that Samsung enjoys. So they are signing oodles of partnership agreements and buying gobs of machine tools. Apple goes to a supplier and says, "Here is money to build a new factory building. Here, fill it with these machine tools that we own. Now what you make in this factory you will sell to us and only to us." And that company, or a branch of it, becomes Apple's indentured servant. Apple gets all the benefits and none of the liabilities of being a vertically integrated conglomerate. And they're doing this across their entire supply chain -- from screens (sharp's IGZO tech) to those aluminum enclosures, about the only part that they aren't doing this with (yet) are the chips, and it's only a matter of time before they pay someone to build and operate fabs for them. |
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