Tim Cook’s Top Priorities: A Cash Pile of $97 Billion and a Partner Called Foxconn

With a growing cash pile that will exceed $100 billion the next reported quarter and a PR fiasco regarding overseas partners accused of worker abuse, Timothy D. Cook has his way cut out for himself, according to a report that profiles the new Apple CEO.

Some believe Cook might even do a great job as the president of the United States of America, but the Irish Independent has a more down-to-earth view of the man.

Their feature on Apple Inc. as an organization with Cook at its core outlines that Apple’s new boss has at least two major challenges to overcome in the short-term.

The Cupertino, California-based Mac maker has just reported its best quarter ever. The company currently has close to a hundred billion dollars in the bank.

Cook is now facing “increasing pressure to either consummate a major acquisition or else return some of the cash to Apple shareholders,” the paper notes.

This comes just as The New York Times published a piece on the ever-growing concerns surrounding Foxconn, and how this particular Apple partner treats its workers.

The matter has been discussed for years now, and there’s been little visible improvement so far.

It is believed that Apple has been able to achieve its high profit margins because “in China, human costs are built into an iPad”, the NY Times headline read.

As a first step towards addressing these concerns in the media, Apple published a list of all its suppliers for the first time ever, and issued its annual Progress Report and Supplier Code of Conduct touting some of the improvements it had made or, at the very least, had helped get done.

According to the Irish paper, “While any chief executive would dearly love to have Apple's cash problem, the Foxconn issue has the potential to severely tarnish the company's carefully burnished brand image. How Mr Cook addresses this problem could have serious implications for Apple's future.”