I have, for example, almost completely stopped using FB. Yet, I keep a profile available, because its the best (often only) way to keep in touch with distant friends and family. The only time I log on is when I get a message, and want to reply. Despite disliking facebook tremendously, its really unlikely I will ever delete my profile (worst case, i use it only to get people's numbers, etc).
The questions is, what constitutes 'stopped using'?
When you want to deactivate your account, you first get the most shameless passive aggressive crap you've ever seen ("but your friends will MISS you!!"), and then if you log in again, your account gets completely re-activated.
At least that's how it was until recently. Doubt that its changed much.
True. And by the way ... I'd love to see manufacturing here in the US again for sure, even if mostly done by robots. At least we'd have made in the USA back on the boxes!
I did not agree with this view at all. Indeed, I thought that it was a very Luddite point of view.
But I am reconsidering my long-held views on this issue.
My concern, believe it or not, would be related to quality and precision, not cost.
To even suggest that Steve Jobs ever entertained acquisition of Facebook is preposterous -- no matter how relevant Facebook is to the ecosystem carefully developed and nurtured by Apple.
Very close collaboration is one thing. In fact, while Apple fans and Apple haters seem to have "black and white" concept of alliance", Steve Jobs never thought that way. He respected Bill Gates, and collaborated with him when it suited the development of the long term ecosystem, he had in mind.
First, there is the "projected market capitalization" of Facebook. The cash reserve of Apple would not be enough. Apple has into go into debt to acquire Facebook. A move that Steve Jobs is not likely to do, considering the history of Apple, once at the brink of bankruptcy ca 1997. That was a very traumatic experience for Steve Jobs, he has to make a deal with Bill Gates and sacrificed a lot in terms of intellectual property shared with Miscrosoft. I doubt Steve Jobs would have ever done such a deal had Apple been in better shape when he came back to Apple. It is likely that he might not even have sold its Apple ARM shares were it not for the need for cash. There are many other things that Steve Jobs had to let go, at the time.
The "cash horde" predisposition might be a consequence of that situation of Apple around 1997. I believe, since then Apple has strived to have no debt and started building its cash reserve.
Second. Social sites are not very stable. One classic example is Geocities -- acquired by Yahoo for more than $4 billion dollars during the height of the internet mania in late 1990's. Considering how young Facebook is, it is already involved in many very controversial issues -- privacy issues, harboring of pedophiles, all the sex scandals, the theft of personal information, etc. Aoart from this, there is no assurance that the taste of the incoming generation of youth wuold be the same as the Facebook culture. This happened with MySpace which actually too the ascendance from yet another social group.
Third. Steve Jobs had a chance to acquire other companies, that would have been perfect fit for Apple also -- movie companies with vast library of films, television media, etc.; or music labels, but Steve Jobs did not acquire them for one reason or another.
Steve Jobs did sell Pixar to Disney, and became the largest stockholder of Disney. It gained access to all the properties of Disney that is part of the backbone of the iTunes movie and tv materials. He was able to achieve this, without Disney getting a bite of Apple. In that merger acquisition, Pixar did not have the same scope and potential as Steve Jobs envisioned Apple since he came back in 1997.
Also, if Apple will acquire Facebook, the founder of Facebook will become a major stockholder of Apple. From what I read about him, it would not be a cultural fit with Steve Jobs. He is also young and has the ego (perhaos more) than the Steve Jobs before 1985.
There are also the venture capital investors of Facebook that would require not 10x return on their investments, but hundred fold or even thousand fold return in their investment. This is part of the bloat in the projected value of Facebook.
Apple has been very selective in the companies it acquired, indeed also perfect fit and sometime core in the technologies being developed by Apple. They are usually small.
Finally. Many forget that Apple enters into log term deals with its suppliers; and in large quantities. The large screen monitor deal with LG alone was $500 million, and they are not even fully utilized in the products of Apple. If you consider all the parts that go into the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Macs-- even at iSupply estimates -- would total tens of billions of dollars in a 5-year long term deals.
Perfectly sensible name if you ask me. Most CRT tubes have an elecTRON gun. Sony came up with a CRT that used three instead of one. TRI means three so TRIniTRON makes perfect sense
And don't forget the virtual people racing their bikes inside.
Akamei will be bought. And other small companies: software side - the dropbox guys would be a good fit, and some smaller streaming service ( possibly even spotify): hardware side - chip side manufacturing and anything that buys IP.
I think at one point that was going to happen. It seems though that Apple's internal strategists have decided that Adobe will die off by itself... or at least is on such a decline that it would be wiser to buy later.
The tech world would cry foul at this point anyway if Apple bought them.
I always thought it would be interesting for Apple to buy a controlling interest in Tine Warner after the NBC merger happens. They might just do that.
Personally I see them continuing to buy up alot of the small innovative companies out there.
* Improving access to content and distribution. I could see Apple buying a studio (Sony, CBS) to improve its access to content, buying a local cable provider (Comcast, Charter, TWC) to get better access to the living room, buying Netflix for its delivery patents or Tivo for its DVR patents (though neither of those would be a major acquisition).
"Improving access" by killing Blu-ray and making movies and shows available only through iTunes?
nvidia might have enough interesting IP to acquire...
One interesting thought is that it might resolve the dispute with Intel allowing Apple to move forward with decent nvidia based integrated GPUs so long as the Dells and HPs of the world are stuck with Intel IGPs. My thought is that Intel probably still wants Apple as an intel exclusive enough to allow this and it eliminates nvidia as a long term problem without worrying about looking like or being a bully.
I would like to see this one but, I don't think so. It's a too much larger company, a lot of things to deal with, too much work for Jobs, too much distraction for Apple, and finally that could be a big disaster. But I really like the idea
I think it's about time that Apple releases its own Creative Suite and release Mac users of Adobe's dependence. Buy Pixelmator, a very promising product and very Appleish one too, and start from there.
Then buy Vector Designer and lineform and convert them in Canvas or something like that that could create Web designs too. After that buy MacRabbit with Espresso, CSSEdit, and Panic, Inc. with Coda and Transmit and create the best apps for Web Development, including an easy animator that converts animations in JavaScript to kill Flash FOR-E-VER.
Finally Buy QuarkExpress and re-create it and re-launch it and you are done.
At last, group all that in a suite and call it: iDesign or iDo, or something we like to hear.
And the price? $299.
After that Adobe should die in 5 to 8 years, and Microsoft will be creating apps for Macs and iOS, 'cause there's where they belong.
What's scary about the modern Apple to its competitors is that Apple made nearly as much in profit for FY2010 ($14b) as they did in revenue for all of FY2005. That's serious growth and Apple now has serious power.
Wall Street really wants Apple to do something with the money which is currently earning <1%. I can't say I blame them, but it's not like Apple hasn't made them all rich in the last decade. If you drop a multi-billion investment on something, you want it to really pay off. Ironically, the largest single investment that Apple ever did in an acquisition paid off ridiculously....buying NeXT in 1996 and casting the die for what came after. $400 million turned into $300 billion in future company value in just 15 years. In the end, it was the smartest thing that Dr. Gil Amelio and the Apple board at that time ever did, even if Steve took over and fired them all. These days Apple spends more money prepaying for Flash memory, LCD screens and building data centers (and doesn't miss the money). Very different times.
Clearly nothing Apple could do now will get that kind of growth...but what could they buy that would see multiples? Who has something that Apple truly wants? A tech company? Software? Content? Remember back in the middle of the last decade when Apple nearly bought Universal Music? Back then they would have had to spend every last dollar on that deal (which would have been a disaster anyway). These days, they could buy them easily in cash...but why buy a flagging business?
Their work on unreal engine for iOS looks really promising. Apple could use the expertise of their engineers to develop some really top notch APIs for iOS and OSX. I think Epic Games or some other company with a top notch gaming engine would make a lot of sense for an acquisition.
To even suggest that Steve Jobs ever entertained acquisition of Facebook is preposterous -- no matter how relevant Facebook is to the ecosystem carefully developed and nurtured by Apple.
Very close collaboration is one thing. In fact, while Apple fans and Apple haters seem to have "black and white" concept of alliance", Steve Jobs never thought that way. He respected Bill Gates, and collaborated with him when it suited the development of the long term ecosystem, he had in mind.
First, there is the "projected market capitalization" of Facebook. The cash reserve of Apple would not be enough. Apple has into go into debt to acquire Facebook. A move that Steve Jobs is not likely to do, considering the history of Apple, once at the brink of bankruptcy ca 1997. That was a very traumatic experience for Steve Jobs, he has to make a deal with Bill Gates and sacrificed a lot in terms of intellectual property shared with Miscrosoft. I doubt Steve Jobs would have ever done such a deal had Apple been in better shape when he came back to Apple. It is likely that he might not even have sold its Apple ARM shares were it not for the need for cash. There are many other things that Steve Jobs had to let go, at the time.
The "cash horde" predisposition might be a consequence of that situation of Apple around 1997. I believe, since then Apple has strived to have no debt and started building its cash reserve.
Second. Social sites are not very stable. One classic example is Geocities -- acquired by Yahoo for more than $4 billion dollars during the height of the internet mania in late 1990's. Considering how young Facebook is, it is already involved in many very controversial issues -- privacy issues, harboring of pedophiles, all the sex scandals, the theft of personal information, etc. Aoart from this, there is no assurance that the taste of the incoming generation of youth wuold be the same as the Facebook culture. This happened with MySpace which actually too the ascendance from yet another social group.
Third. Steve Jobs had a chance to acquire other companies, that would have been perfect fit for Apple also -- movie companies with vast library of films, television media, etc.; or music labels, but Steve Jobs did not acquire them for one reason or another.
Steve Jobs did sell Pixar to Disney, and became the largest stockholder of Disney. It gained access to all the properties of Disney that is part of the backbone of the iTunes movie and tv materials. He was able to achieve this, without Disney getting a bite of Apple. In that merger acquisition, Pixar did not have the same scope and potential as Steve Jobs envisioned Apple since he came back in 1997.
Also, if Apple will acquire Facebook, the founder of Facebook will become a major stockholder of Apple. From what I read about him, it would not be a cultural fit with Steve Jobs. He is also young and has the ego (perhaos more) than the Steve Jobs before 1985.
There are also the venture capital investors of Facebook that would require not 10x return on their investments, but hundred fold or even thousand fold return in their investment. This is part of the bloat in the projected value of Facebook.
Apple has been very selective in the companies it acquired, indeed also perfect fit and sometime core in the technologies being developed by Apple. They are usually small.
Finally. Many forget that Apple enters into log term deals with its suppliers; and in large quantities. The large screen monitor deal with LG alone was $500 million, and they are not even fully utilized in the products of Apple. If you consider all the parts that go into the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Macs-- even at iSupply estimates -- would total tens of billions of dollars in a 5-year long term deals.
CGC
This is probably the best explanation of why Apple shouldn't go after social sites like Facebook. It sounds fun for bloggers to speculate on but makes no sense to Apple, its board or investors. AOL looked like at one point (1995) that it would own the Internet and outlive Apple. Fast forward 15 years and AOL is a shadow of its former self, a victim of its own outdated business model (it is trying to change by buying into the blogging world). Geocities is dead, having been overpaid for by Yahoo. And Yahoo of course still generate cash but they are fighting for their long term survival by possible talking about teaming up with AOL of all people. My how times change.
You mention Apple's long term deal with suppliers. This is one of the reasons why Apple can achieve economies of scale that nobody else can do. If you look at their competitors in the smartphone space like Motorola or HTC, neither company can buy bulk quantities of components at Apple's prices. Then Apple sells iPhones at what everyone else is doing and people wonder why their margins are so good. Or in the case of the iPad, they just price it really aggressively to crowd out any other early entries to the market. Everybody had to step back and rethink how they were going to compete at $499. Even Steve said so during the concall. In one fell swoop, Apple froze the market by a good 6 months, all because Apple gets flash memory, screens and batteries cheaper than everyone else (along with everything else). Steve Jobs may be the genius visionary, but a much of Apple's supply chain success belongs to COO Tim Cook who may go down as the best ops manager in the history of business.
1. Adobe is overvalued (from the standpoint of Apple).
2. Facebook is overvalued.
3. Google has value. However, it would make Apple too big and is culturally incompatible.
4. Microsoft has value with its business products, and its brands, and sales accounts. Buying Microsoft would be a historic event. Apple can then build their own Windows virtualization layer right into the OS and treat it like Carbon, slowly suffocating it and nudging developers towards Cocoa. However, this would hardly fly with antitrust agencies.
CRAZY
5. Tesla. First you buy iPod, then iPad, then iMac, then iCar. Both computing devices and electric cars need high-efficiency batteries. Being the biggest customer for batteries (as it is now for Flash chips) would help Apple accelerate the research in chemistry.
6. Some robotics company. Fully automated factories for producing all the products. Move production back to the USA. No more leaks of the manufacturing processes to Taiwanese/Koreans. No more high-profile suicides. However, this will not happen because Apple is actually helping move the poor rural population to cities, while constantly insisting on higher standards of employee treatment.
MAYBE
7. Nuance. Would provide best-in-the-world speech recognition and synthesis for all world's languages. Currently recognition is available for what, English only? Potential problems with antitrust agencies, since Nuance currently owns almost everything related to speech.
8. EMI/Warner to introduce music innovations faster.
9. Film studio(s). This would help push the internet distribution channel as the golden standard and kill cable companies.
10. All the troubled satellite projects (Iridium etc.), which are currently undervalued. Merge them into one single global network, put one single satellite modem into iPod touch and get rid of mobile operators altogether. (This would hardly work since satellite does not work inside of buildings, but maybe they can use Wi-Fi inside of buildings, which will provide a use for then-defunct cable companies?) Potential problems with antitrust agencies. [Maybe SpaceX Technologies as well, to launch thousands of satellites on the cheap; this will provide Musk with necessary financing to turn Tesla into a big serious player.]
REAL
11. Skype is overvalued (from the standpoint of Apple), but it could be valuable simply because of the large existing user base (which could be seamlessly transitioned to Facetime). Apple already has infrastructure apps like iTunes for Windows or Safari for Windows, so a third one is not out of the question.
12. Luxology is undervalued. Would round out Apple's portfolio of creative apps with a 3D editor.
13. Even bigger stake in ARM/PowerVR. The only thing holding Apple from moving all computers to ARM processors is Light Peak, which they want to get from Intel before dumping them. (Read about all the ARM server/workstation companies springing up lately on http://eetimes.com)
Really, when thinking about acquisitions, I tend to think about two things: a) things that are not yet complete (e.g., Luxology modo completing Final Cut Pro and Logic pro apps, Voice Recognition only working with English); b) things which Apple spends the most money on, and is dependent on. As a complete outsider to the industry, I can only imagine what these latter things are, but probably it's Infineon baseband chips and Intel processors. So buying Qualcomm or creating a real global satellite data network makes certain sense. Moving to ARM makes sense (not too hard to imagine Intel/ARM Universal binaries, which would start with Trojan MacBook Air ARM).
Finally, I think Apple might just continue investing more into basic research. Chemistry, materials, chips, manufacturing processes etc. Basically, bringing us into the future faster than would happen otherwise.
Comments
I have, for example, almost completely stopped using FB. Yet, I keep a profile available, because its the best (often only) way to keep in touch with distant friends and family. The only time I log on is when I get a message, and want to reply. Despite disliking facebook tremendously, its really unlikely I will ever delete my profile (worst case, i use it only to get people's numbers, etc).
The questions is, what constitutes 'stopped using'?
When you want to deactivate your account, you first get the most shameless passive aggressive crap you've ever seen ("but your friends will MISS you!!"), and then if you log in again, your account gets completely re-activated.
At least that's how it was until recently. Doubt that its changed much.
True. And by the way ... I'd love to see manufacturing here in the US again for sure, even if mostly done by robots. At least we'd have made in the USA back on the boxes!
I did not agree with this view at all. Indeed, I thought that it was a very Luddite point of view.
But I am reconsidering my long-held views on this issue.
My concern, believe it or not, would be related to quality and precision, not cost.
Very close collaboration is one thing. In fact, while Apple fans and Apple haters seem to have "black and white" concept of alliance", Steve Jobs never thought that way. He respected Bill Gates, and collaborated with him when it suited the development of the long term ecosystem, he had in mind.
First, there is the "projected market capitalization" of Facebook. The cash reserve of Apple would not be enough. Apple has into go into debt to acquire Facebook. A move that Steve Jobs is not likely to do, considering the history of Apple, once at the brink of bankruptcy ca 1997. That was a very traumatic experience for Steve Jobs, he has to make a deal with Bill Gates and sacrificed a lot in terms of intellectual property shared with Miscrosoft. I doubt Steve Jobs would have ever done such a deal had Apple been in better shape when he came back to Apple. It is likely that he might not even have sold its Apple ARM shares were it not for the need for cash. There are many other things that Steve Jobs had to let go, at the time.
The "cash horde" predisposition might be a consequence of that situation of Apple around 1997. I believe, since then Apple has strived to have no debt and started building its cash reserve.
Second. Social sites are not very stable. One classic example is Geocities -- acquired by Yahoo for more than $4 billion dollars during the height of the internet mania in late 1990's. Considering how young Facebook is, it is already involved in many very controversial issues -- privacy issues, harboring of pedophiles, all the sex scandals, the theft of personal information, etc. Aoart from this, there is no assurance that the taste of the incoming generation of youth wuold be the same as the Facebook culture. This happened with MySpace which actually too the ascendance from yet another social group.
Third. Steve Jobs had a chance to acquire other companies, that would have been perfect fit for Apple also -- movie companies with vast library of films, television media, etc.; or music labels, but Steve Jobs did not acquire them for one reason or another.
Steve Jobs did sell Pixar to Disney, and became the largest stockholder of Disney. It gained access to all the properties of Disney that is part of the backbone of the iTunes movie and tv materials. He was able to achieve this, without Disney getting a bite of Apple. In that merger acquisition, Pixar did not have the same scope and potential as Steve Jobs envisioned Apple since he came back in 1997.
Also, if Apple will acquire Facebook, the founder of Facebook will become a major stockholder of Apple. From what I read about him, it would not be a cultural fit with Steve Jobs. He is also young and has the ego (perhaos more) than the Steve Jobs before 1985.
There are also the venture capital investors of Facebook that would require not 10x return on their investments, but hundred fold or even thousand fold return in their investment. This is part of the bloat in the projected value of Facebook.
Apple has been very selective in the companies it acquired, indeed also perfect fit and sometime core in the technologies being developed by Apple. They are usually small.
Finally. Many forget that Apple enters into log term deals with its suppliers; and in large quantities. The large screen monitor deal with LG alone was $500 million, and they are not even fully utilized in the products of Apple. If you consider all the parts that go into the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Macs-- even at iSupply estimates -- would total tens of billions of dollars in a 5-year long term deals.
CGC
It'd give Apple the badly needed space (and large space) in prime retail locations.
And it'd be a good "put up" of Steve's vision to replace books with iPads.
Perfectly sensible name if you ask me. Most CRT tubes have an elecTRON gun. Sony came up with a CRT that used three instead of one. TRI means three so TRIniTRON makes perfect sense
And don't forget the virtual people racing their bikes inside.
Apple isn't getting into social networking (again). MS can chase that fool's gold.
Akamei will be bought. And other small companies: software side - the dropbox guys would be a good fit, and some smaller streaming service ( possibly even spotify): hardware side - chip side manufacturing and anything that buys IP.
They are not going to be or buy carriers.
Pitcairn Island!
Sure, but does Steve even own a white cat?
Buy ADOBE !!!!
I think at one point that was going to happen. It seems though that Apple's internal strategists have decided that Adobe will die off by itself... or at least is on such a decline that it would be wiser to buy later.
The tech world would cry foul at this point anyway if Apple bought them.
I always thought it would be interesting for Apple to buy a controlling interest in Tine Warner after the NBC merger happens. They might just do that.
Personally I see them continuing to buy up alot of the small innovative companies out there.
That would send the competition into a tizzy.
* Improving access to content and distribution. I could see Apple buying a studio (Sony, CBS) to improve its access to content, buying a local cable provider (Comcast, Charter, TWC) to get better access to the living room, buying Netflix for its delivery patents or Tivo for its DVR patents (though neither of those would be a major acquisition).
"Improving access" by killing Blu-ray and making movies and shows available only through iTunes?
One interesting thought is that it might resolve the dispute with Intel allowing Apple to move forward with decent nvidia based integrated GPUs so long as the Dells and HPs of the world are stuck with Intel IGPs. My thought is that Intel probably still wants Apple as an intel exclusive enough to allow this and it eliminates nvidia as a long term problem without worrying about looking like or being a bully.
I think it's about time that Apple releases its own Creative Suite and release Mac users of Adobe's dependence. Buy Pixelmator, a very promising product and very Appleish one too, and start from there.
Then buy Vector Designer and lineform and convert them in Canvas or something like that that could create Web designs too. After that buy MacRabbit with Espresso, CSSEdit, and Panic, Inc. with Coda and Transmit and create the best apps for Web Development, including an easy animator that converts animations in JavaScript to kill Flash FOR-E-VER.
Finally Buy QuarkExpress and re-create it and re-launch it and you are done.
At last, group all that in a suite and call it: iDesign or iDo, or something we like to hear.
And the price? $299.
After that Adobe should die in 5 to 8 years, and Microsoft will be creating apps for Macs and iOS, 'cause there's where they belong.
Wall Street really wants Apple to do something with the money which is currently earning <1%. I can't say I blame them, but it's not like Apple hasn't made them all rich in the last decade. If you drop a multi-billion investment on something, you want it to really pay off. Ironically, the largest single investment that Apple ever did in an acquisition paid off ridiculously....buying NeXT in 1996 and casting the die for what came after. $400 million turned into $300 billion in future company value in just 15 years. In the end, it was the smartest thing that Dr. Gil Amelio and the Apple board at that time ever did, even if Steve took over and fired them all. These days Apple spends more money prepaying for Flash memory, LCD screens and building data centers (and doesn't miss the money). Very different times.
Clearly nothing Apple could do now will get that kind of growth...but what could they buy that would see multiples? Who has something that Apple truly wants? A tech company? Software? Content? Remember back in the middle of the last decade when Apple nearly bought Universal Music? Back then they would have had to spend every last dollar on that deal (which would have been a disaster anyway). These days, they could buy them easily in cash...but why buy a flagging business?
A) Verizon or equal ( get control of a wireless carrier)
C) Create or take over the next generation internet infrastructure , internet 2 or whatever.
Bottom line, don't by a company, as so much as an infrastructure with a future.
Just a thought.
He said there are a few prospects that Apple are following.
To even suggest that Steve Jobs ever entertained acquisition of Facebook is preposterous -- no matter how relevant Facebook is to the ecosystem carefully developed and nurtured by Apple.
Very close collaboration is one thing. In fact, while Apple fans and Apple haters seem to have "black and white" concept of alliance", Steve Jobs never thought that way. He respected Bill Gates, and collaborated with him when it suited the development of the long term ecosystem, he had in mind.
First, there is the "projected market capitalization" of Facebook. The cash reserve of Apple would not be enough. Apple has into go into debt to acquire Facebook. A move that Steve Jobs is not likely to do, considering the history of Apple, once at the brink of bankruptcy ca 1997. That was a very traumatic experience for Steve Jobs, he has to make a deal with Bill Gates and sacrificed a lot in terms of intellectual property shared with Miscrosoft. I doubt Steve Jobs would have ever done such a deal had Apple been in better shape when he came back to Apple. It is likely that he might not even have sold its Apple ARM shares were it not for the need for cash. There are many other things that Steve Jobs had to let go, at the time.
The "cash horde" predisposition might be a consequence of that situation of Apple around 1997. I believe, since then Apple has strived to have no debt and started building its cash reserve.
Second. Social sites are not very stable. One classic example is Geocities -- acquired by Yahoo for more than $4 billion dollars during the height of the internet mania in late 1990's. Considering how young Facebook is, it is already involved in many very controversial issues -- privacy issues, harboring of pedophiles, all the sex scandals, the theft of personal information, etc. Aoart from this, there is no assurance that the taste of the incoming generation of youth wuold be the same as the Facebook culture. This happened with MySpace which actually too the ascendance from yet another social group.
Third. Steve Jobs had a chance to acquire other companies, that would have been perfect fit for Apple also -- movie companies with vast library of films, television media, etc.; or music labels, but Steve Jobs did not acquire them for one reason or another.
Steve Jobs did sell Pixar to Disney, and became the largest stockholder of Disney. It gained access to all the properties of Disney that is part of the backbone of the iTunes movie and tv materials. He was able to achieve this, without Disney getting a bite of Apple. In that merger acquisition, Pixar did not have the same scope and potential as Steve Jobs envisioned Apple since he came back in 1997.
Also, if Apple will acquire Facebook, the founder of Facebook will become a major stockholder of Apple. From what I read about him, it would not be a cultural fit with Steve Jobs. He is also young and has the ego (perhaos more) than the Steve Jobs before 1985.
There are also the venture capital investors of Facebook that would require not 10x return on their investments, but hundred fold or even thousand fold return in their investment. This is part of the bloat in the projected value of Facebook.
Apple has been very selective in the companies it acquired, indeed also perfect fit and sometime core in the technologies being developed by Apple. They are usually small.
Finally. Many forget that Apple enters into log term deals with its suppliers; and in large quantities. The large screen monitor deal with LG alone was $500 million, and they are not even fully utilized in the products of Apple. If you consider all the parts that go into the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Macs-- even at iSupply estimates -- would total tens of billions of dollars in a 5-year long term deals.
CGC
This is probably the best explanation of why Apple shouldn't go after social sites like Facebook. It sounds fun for bloggers to speculate on but makes no sense to Apple, its board or investors. AOL looked like at one point (1995) that it would own the Internet and outlive Apple. Fast forward 15 years and AOL is a shadow of its former self, a victim of its own outdated business model (it is trying to change by buying into the blogging world). Geocities is dead, having been overpaid for by Yahoo. And Yahoo of course still generate cash but they are fighting for their long term survival by possible talking about teaming up with AOL of all people. My how times change.
You mention Apple's long term deal with suppliers. This is one of the reasons why Apple can achieve economies of scale that nobody else can do. If you look at their competitors in the smartphone space like Motorola or HTC, neither company can buy bulk quantities of components at Apple's prices. Then Apple sells iPhones at what everyone else is doing and people wonder why their margins are so good. Or in the case of the iPad, they just price it really aggressively to crowd out any other early entries to the market. Everybody had to step back and rethink how they were going to compete at $499. Even Steve said so during the concall. In one fell swoop, Apple froze the market by a good 6 months, all because Apple gets flash memory, screens and batteries cheaper than everyone else (along with everything else). Steve Jobs may be the genius visionary, but a much of Apple's supply chain success belongs to COO Tim Cook who may go down as the best ops manager in the history of business.
iDo
iLikethename, iDo.
1. Adobe is overvalued (from the standpoint of Apple).
2. Facebook is overvalued.
3. Google has value. However, it would make Apple too big and is culturally incompatible.
4. Microsoft has value with its business products, and its brands, and sales accounts. Buying Microsoft would be a historic event. Apple can then build their own Windows virtualization layer right into the OS and treat it like Carbon, slowly suffocating it and nudging developers towards Cocoa. However, this would hardly fly with antitrust agencies.
CRAZY
5. Tesla. First you buy iPod, then iPad, then iMac, then iCar. Both computing devices and electric cars need high-efficiency batteries. Being the biggest customer for batteries (as it is now for Flash chips) would help Apple accelerate the research in chemistry.
6. Some robotics company. Fully automated factories for producing all the products. Move production back to the USA. No more leaks of the manufacturing processes to Taiwanese/Koreans. No more high-profile suicides. However, this will not happen because Apple is actually helping move the poor rural population to cities, while constantly insisting on higher standards of employee treatment.
MAYBE
7. Nuance. Would provide best-in-the-world speech recognition and synthesis for all world's languages. Currently recognition is available for what, English only? Potential problems with antitrust agencies, since Nuance currently owns almost everything related to speech.
8. EMI/Warner to introduce music innovations faster.
9. Film studio(s). This would help push the internet distribution channel as the golden standard and kill cable companies.
10. All the troubled satellite projects (Iridium etc.), which are currently undervalued. Merge them into one single global network, put one single satellite modem into iPod touch and get rid of mobile operators altogether. (This would hardly work since satellite does not work inside of buildings, but maybe they can use Wi-Fi inside of buildings, which will provide a use for then-defunct cable companies?) Potential problems with antitrust agencies. [Maybe SpaceX Technologies as well, to launch thousands of satellites on the cheap; this will provide Musk with necessary financing to turn Tesla into a big serious player.]
REAL
11. Skype is overvalued (from the standpoint of Apple), but it could be valuable simply because of the large existing user base (which could be seamlessly transitioned to Facetime). Apple already has infrastructure apps like iTunes for Windows or Safari for Windows, so a third one is not out of the question.
12. Luxology is undervalued. Would round out Apple's portfolio of creative apps with a 3D editor.
13. Even bigger stake in ARM/PowerVR. The only thing holding Apple from moving all computers to ARM processors is Light Peak, which they want to get from Intel before dumping them. (Read about all the ARM server/workstation companies springing up lately on http://eetimes.com)
Really, when thinking about acquisitions, I tend to think about two things: a) things that are not yet complete (e.g., Luxology modo completing Final Cut Pro and Logic pro apps, Voice Recognition only working with English); b) things which Apple spends the most money on, and is dependent on. As a complete outsider to the industry, I can only imagine what these latter things are, but probably it's Infineon baseband chips and Intel processors. So buying Qualcomm or creating a real global satellite data network makes certain sense. Moving to ARM makes sense (not too hard to imagine Intel/ARM Universal binaries, which would start with Trojan MacBook Air ARM).
Finally, I think Apple might just continue investing more into basic research. Chemistry, materials, chips, manufacturing processes etc. Basically, bringing us into the future faster than would happen otherwise.