Originally Posted by jragosta
It really drives me crazy when people who don't understand business keep posting drivel.
Apple has a paid up LICENSE. That means they don't have to pay any more license fees. But who's going to make the product? Obviously, not Apple. Apple still has to buy the product from LQMT, so LQMT would see significant revenues (and, likely, profits) if Apple starts using the product in quantity.
What makes you think that this cannot be done for Apple by Foxconn? This formula itself is not a secret - just that LQMT needs to be paid royalties for using the formula. If Apple has already paid LQMT for perpetual rights, why can't Apple use the formula and have someone like Foxconn make this for them? Where does LQMT make money in such a scenario?
If Foxconn can do unibody machining for Aluminium, this should be a lot easier technologically.
And more importantly, do you really think LQMT has the scale and the resources to satisfy Apple's demands, if Apple starts using this product on a serious scale?
I look at LQMT kind of like a fabless semiconductor design company - they perfect the design, and then let others take care of the grunt work.
And while you are at this, go read up LiquidMetal on Wikipedia. All the formulae for various options are listed there. The science behind this is also there. And do read up about how LiquidMetal can actually be cast and is still strong, stable and has better finish - whereas other metals cannot be cast without a lot of post-processing and finishing to make them usable. Now, consider the unibody Mac. If Apple can cast LiquidMetal to do this, as opposed to machining solid blocks of Aluminium, their overall costs would be much lower - even if Aluminium blocks are lot cheaper than LiquidMetal (because casting is a much cheaper process than machining - making the moulds is the most expensive part of the process - and since Apple makes those in bulk, even that would be cheap for Apple). I would be willing to bet that Johnny Ive's next innovation would be using cast LiquidMetal instead of machined unibody Aluminium.