Steve was truly remarkable - in the Edison league. Tim is not Steve and he knows that, so he is managing Apple very differently. He relies far more on his team and the vision no longer transpires from a single individual, but as a collective effort, but still true to the spirit of Steve Jobs.

The Apple HQ probably says more about the company size than its' spending patterns. In fact they spend proportionally very little on SGA. Now, Apple has a real challenge in making use of overseas cash flows and obviously here they kill two flies. Getting incredibly cheap funding for stock repurchases while paying it back with excess cash flows generated overseas. Pretty clever.

I agree and i really like Amazon and use it a lot. I do however understand the shareholders who are eager to see some profits... they need to be very focused in their execution and not divert attention away from their core business.