Magical & Revolutionary Probe of an Unbelievable Company
SAN FRANCISCO—May 3 27, 2010—Apple® today announced that it will be the subject of a revolutionary federal antitrust probe. In fact, Apple is so popular that the only question is which federal regulatory body will get the chance to charge Apple with anti-competitive behavior that is more egregious and far reaching than that of any other US corporation. Both the US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are competing for the right to share the stage with Apple in court.
"With the iPhone, iPod, and now the iPad, we offer the most magical and revolutionary anticompetitive practices of any high-tech company," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We have created and defined an entirely new category of anticompetitive behavior that will prevent third party developers from easily porting their applications to other platforms, all while locking users into a digital media and apps ecosystem in a much more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before."
Regulators are still days away from deciding which brilliant agency will take on Apple and its next-generation anticompetitive practices, but we just couldn't wait to tell you the news. And since our market cap of $237.6 billion exceeds that of the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, whose market cap is a paltry $201.7 billion, we should be able to defend ourselves legally for many years to come. This explains, too, why we've never paid a dividend or split the stock.
The eventual trial will be carried live on the iTunes® Store, which gives you access to the world's most popular online music, TV and movie store with a catalog of over 11 million songs, over 50,000 TV episodes and over 8,000 films including over 2,000 in stunning high definition video. Each hour of court room video will cost $1.29, and will play only on Apple's devices and software.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II, which was outsold by various Commodore and Atari machines. It reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh, when it copied the Xerox Star. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications, none of which are used by more than 4 percent of the computer-using public. Our iPod portable music and video players, iTunes online store, and iPhone products have proven to be dramatically more popular.
Press Contacts:
Colin Smith
Apple
colins@apple.com
(408) 862-1171
Bill Evans
Apple
bevans@apple.com
(408) 974-0610