I think they should buy a porn studio and you get a free trip when you buy a mac. That way it'll be true that Macs get you laid ( http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=q_uddKK3nmY ). Their marketshare will go through the roof.
I actually think they should aim more at companies who are actually innovating - that's where most of their successful buy outs come from. Shake, Logic, Final Cut. What would we really gain from an Apple buyout of Adobe? Adobe is dead in the water, there's nothing particularly new in the CS suite except to mix in the Macromedia stuff and get universal binaries.
Then take a look at a little app like Pixelmator, which takes advantage of Core Image to give some really nice functionality. If Apple bought up the rights to that software and bundled it with their OS, in place of preview or something, that would be incredible. Same with Coda instead of iweb.
What I'd really like to see is them leverage more open source technology. Perhaps an SVG-based animation IDE for online content to take on Silverlight and Flash.
Buying Adobe is tantamount to buying 24oz Porterhouse and only getting 4oz of steak. Folks there's too much fat there. By the time Aperture hits 3.0 there won't be a need for Photoshop for many people.
Here are my acquisition targets in no particular order.
1. Luxology- I'd buy'em and run then as a wholly owned subsidary a la Filemaker. That way I have access to excellent 3D talent whenever I need it.
2. The Pixel Farm- Makers of PFTrack (Match Moving) and other tools would be a boon to Apple's Pro Video apps.
3. Celemony Software- Makers of Melodyne the excellent pitch shifter and formant audio tool.
4. Apogee Digital- Apple partners with them enough. May as well drop the coin and have access to some of the best audio converters on the planet.
5. Dabble DB- Web 2.0 DB/Spreadsheet program. I'd buy them and meld the product into a "live" type of online program.
I'm sure there are plenty of areas the Apple wants to move towards but they aren't showing their hand yet. They are certainly not going to relinquish the media crown easily so I could see an acquisition coming from out of nowwhere to bolster that effort. Broadcast space would be nice. I can only imagine what nifty features Apple could do with a broadcast channel. I eventually see them becoming a small carrier for the iPhone and other telephony product like a MVNO where they will handle their billing and service the whole way through. I figure about 5 years.
I'd love to see Apple acquire some Telephony IP centered around VOIP. I'd also love to see a solid PBX from Apple that puts Asterisk to shame. This would all coalesce into an Apple Unified Messaging Platform (AUMP) by 10.7. My emails, voicemail, notes, calendar, and entire life should be portable across hardware platforms and geography.
Folks there's too much fat there. By the time Aperture hits 3.0 there won't be a need for Photoshop for many people.
YES
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison
3. Celemony Software- Makers of Melodyne the excellent pitch shifter and formant audio tool.
So you also think that "Innovation", "Melodyne" and "Apple" are pretty much interchangeable too
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison
I'm sure there are plenty of areas the Apple wants to move towards but they aren't showing their hand yet.
Yup, if somewhat impatiently, I have to agree with you, Macworld announcment?
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison
I'd love to see Apple acquire some Telephony IP centered around VOIP. I'd also love to see a solid PBX from Apple that puts Asterisk to shame. This would all coalesce into an Apple Unified Messaging Platform (AUMP) by 10.7. My emails, voicemail, notes, calendar, and entire life should be portable across hardware platforms and geography.
Overall, I would like apple to develop a 3d modeling utility as well as a game engine, the latter being very unlikely. They would use the basic cry2engine, adding some crazy features of course, and then combine that with a steam like utility, except without all the bugs and more like the itunes store. Modo would be the core to their modeling and animation tool, with the other two companies providing built in plugins. Sandbox2 and modo would work perfectly together and the cry2engine would gain complex animations from euphoria and massive.
They fund the development of x-plane just to promote an already superior product, x-plane would also used the cry2engine and use a the steam utility to stream huge amounts of data in real time into x-plane. This data would then be interpreted by terragen, which would be built into the cry2engine, to create an amazing flight sim. And the whole thing would have to be fully online with weapons the work correctly, correct displaying of other players planes, and a host of other features vatsim does not currently provide.
but of course apple will never buy any of these companies and my dream for the most powerful, easy to use, and most complex game engine ever will remain unfulfilled.
with all that cash if they don't spend it don't they pay big bucks in corp taxes?
unless it's for patent defense, prevent takeover, or product development, new products.
what was apples last "aquisition" anyone knows?? i'd thought they'd buy RIM but the iphone makes that pointless. maybe why they don't buy companies is because they have many better products like a better tivo
with all that cash if they don't spend it don't they pay big bucks in corp taxes?
unless it's for patent defense, prevent takeover, or product development, new products.
what was apples last "aquisition" anyone knows?? i'd thought they'd buy RIM but the iphone makes that pointless. maybe why they don't buy companies is because they have many better products like a better tivo
Apple acquired Silicon Color and Proximity about a year ago for the now Apple branded Color and Final Cut Server product.
with all that cash if they don't spend it don't they pay big bucks in corp taxes?
unless it's for patent defense, prevent takeover, or product development, new products.
what was apples last "aquisition" anyone knows?? i'd thought they'd buy RIM but the iphone makes that pointless. maybe why they don't buy companies is because they have many better products like a better tivo
RIM is on borrowed time. They are moving into China knowing with the introduction of the iPhone in Europe there dominance will be compromised. They are getting into China a year or more before the inevitable--iPhone in China.
1. Luxology- I'd buy'em and run then as a wholly owned subsidary a la Filemaker. That way I have access to excellent 3D talent whenever I need it.
Maybe Side Effects software. Houdini has nodal compositing, which their EOL Shake app has. It's also a very good front end to renderman, which would make the Pixar folks happy. There's no Mac version of Houdini and it would be a powerful product to have access to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison
2. The Pixel Farm- Makers of PFTrack (Match Moving) and other tools would be a boon to Apple's Pro Video apps.
Yeah they could even integrate that in with one of the previous apps. You get PFTrack plugins for Shake.
The problem I have with Apple buyouts is that although it sometimes seems like a good idea, they often don't put in enough effort to making the product truly great. From what I can tell, their buyout of Nothing Real to acquire Shake improved Shake very little overall. Bug fixes and Quicktime integration but nothing major and rather than progress it, they seem to be building something from scratch, decomposing Shake and using what they need.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
AutoDesk.
You gain Alias Animation Suite plus all the CAD tools.
Maya's kinda bloated like the CS software though. It's powerful but it's a big project to take on. Also, the likes of AutoCAD are industry standard but not popular with users. It's one of those cases where a really innovative app could steal its crown. They also have Combustion but Apple don't need it with Shake etc.
I remember reading on the Houdini forums about how Side Effects would do an OS X port if enough people (I'm assuming paying customers) would ask for it. I'm surprised that more larger clientele aren't asking for it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
The problem I have with Apple buyouts is that although it sometimes seems like a good idea, they often don't put in enough effort to making the product truly great. From what I can tell, their buyout of Nothing Real to acquire Shake improved Shake very little overall. Bug fixes and Quicktime integration but nothing major and rather than progress it, they seem to be building something from scratch, decomposing Shake and using what they need.
Yes I noticed that too. After the last update to Shake I realized that we weren't going to see any major new functionality. Shortly after that rumors of Phenomenon came and Shake went EOL. Whatever they having coming will be cool but it will be conservative in ways.
Here's another target.
Doubletake- Data Protection and Recovery software that works over a WAN. This dovetails into Apple's Media strategy and burgeoning OS X Server business. Future versions of Time Machine would have WAN replication features built right in.
Maybe Side Effects software. Houdini has nodal compositing, which their EOL Shake app has. It's also a very good front end to renderman, which would make the Pixar folks happy. There's no Mac version of Houdini and it would be a powerful product to have access to.
Yeah they could even integrate that in with one of the previous apps. You get PFTrack plugins for Shake.
The problem I have with Apple buyouts is that although it sometimes seems like a good idea, they often don't put in enough effort to making the product truly great. From what I can tell, their buyout of Nothing Real to acquire Shake improved Shake very little overall. Bug fixes and Quicktime integration but nothing major and rather than progress it, they seem to be building something from scratch, decomposing Shake and using what they need.
Maya's kinda bloated like the CS software though. It's powerful but it's a big project to take on. Also, the likes of AutoCAD are industry standard but not popular with users. It's one of those cases where a really innovative app could steal its crown. They also have Combustion but Apple don't need it with Shake etc.
The point with AutoCAD is to do something AutoDesk won't do and that is to make the DWG/DXF a revamped open standard.
By making this accessible new avenues would open up.
Alias Tools could easily be partitioned out and revamped.
-Elgato systems. I don't care if Steve Jobs doesn't like TV, buying Elgato would seriously help the Mac as a media center and also help to make AppleTV viable. Oh yeah, it's it would also be cheap.
-Roxio's Mac product lineup. Toast as an iApp. 'nuff said.
-Transgaming. Yes, Steve Jobs thinks gaming is a waste of time. Many of us don't. Instead of the porting houses we have now, Apple needs to have some kind of support/ porting team that will help the original developers quickly and easily create Mac versions and ship them in box with their PC counterparts. Just think of what cider could become if they had Apple's full resources.
-Velocity Micro. Yes, I know many of you have some kind of irrational loathing of anything or anyone even remotely conventional. However, this small company has a lot of potential. With a little tweaking, they could get the consumer/corporate/gaming customers that apple currently has no chance at. Style, quality, and margins are very close to what Apple currently has and its a respected name among higher end PC customers. They also have retail agreements with both best Buy and Circuit City. With a little product consolidation and the introduction of both a mATX system and Mac OS X, they could do wonderful things for Apple's coffers.
-Sun Microsystems. Probably not affordable but Sun would really help Apple in the server/workstation department. it would take a while to roll their products into the lineup and merge some of Solaris' better features into Mac OS X, but it would make an already good situation a whole lot better. Oh yeah, should the relationships on the x86 side go south the way they did with the PowerPC, Apple would have its own CPU architecture.
1. Luxology- I'd buy'em and run then as a wholly owned subsidary a la Filemaker. That way I have access to excellent 3D talent whenever I need it.
Personally i think Apple really need it. And if they could actually use Modo as a base to work on an innovative CAD program to kick AutoDesk 's butt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BenRoethig
-Elgato systems. I don't care if Steve Jobs doesn't like TV, buying Elgato would seriously help the Mac as a media center and also help to make AppleTV viable. Oh yeah, it's it would also be cheap.
-Roxio's Mac product lineup. Toast as an iApp. 'nuff said.
-Transgaming. Yes, Steve Jobs thinks gaming is a waste of time. Many of us don't. Instead of the porting houses we have now, Apple needs to have some kind of support/ porting team that will help the original developers quickly and easily create Mac versions and ship them in box with their PC counterparts. Just think of what cider could become if they had Apple's full resources.
-Sun Microsystems. Probably not affordable but Sun would really help Apple in the server/workstation department. it would take a while to roll their products into the lineup and merge some of Solaris' better features into Mac OS X, but it would make an already good situation a whole lot better. Oh yeah, should the relationships on the x86 side go south the way they did with the PowerPC, Apple would have its own CPU architecture.
Instead of Buying Elgato apple will need some open source helper to work on TV chips drivers. So all existing USB TV extension would work on Mac.
Roxio's Toast is good, very good. But the thing is that apart from Toast there are no thing that apple want from Roxio. And Depending on how much Roxio cost i think Apple could self develop a Buring apps.
Transgaming - Apple would properly fund development rather then buying it.
I always think Sun is a good buy for apple. I dont know why. They could have split the deal between Apple and Intel where Intel gets the CPU part and apple gets the Server part. And Since Sun dont own java anymore, is there really anything apple need from Sun that warrant a 20B buy?
Comments
I actually think they should aim more at companies who are actually innovating - that's where most of their successful buy outs come from. Shake, Logic, Final Cut. What would we really gain from an Apple buyout of Adobe? Adobe is dead in the water, there's nothing particularly new in the CS suite except to mix in the Macromedia stuff and get universal binaries.
Then take a look at a little app like Pixelmator, which takes advantage of Core Image to give some really nice functionality. If Apple bought up the rights to that software and bundled it with their OS, in place of preview or something, that would be incredible. Same with Coda instead of iweb.
What I'd really like to see is them leverage more open source technology. Perhaps an SVG-based animation IDE for online content to take on Silverlight and Flash.
Let's start the speculation. After a blowout quarter Apple inc. is sitting on a nice little nest egg.
Perhaps they should go shopping.
Adobe would be perfect at 27.1 b Easily bought with Stock.
Apple buying Adobe was discussed at length here.
No need to start a new thread.
Here are my acquisition targets in no particular order.
1. Luxology- I'd buy'em and run then as a wholly owned subsidary a la Filemaker. That way I have access to excellent 3D talent whenever I need it.
2. The Pixel Farm- Makers of PFTrack (Match Moving) and other tools would be a boon to Apple's Pro Video apps.
3. Celemony Software- Makers of Melodyne the excellent pitch shifter and formant audio tool.
4. Apogee Digital- Apple partners with them enough. May as well drop the coin and have access to some of the best audio converters on the planet.
5. Dabble DB- Web 2.0 DB/Spreadsheet program. I'd buy them and meld the product into a "live" type of online program.
I'm sure there are plenty of areas the Apple wants to move towards but they aren't showing their hand yet. They are certainly not going to relinquish the media crown easily so I could see an acquisition coming from out of nowwhere to bolster that effort. Broadcast space would be nice. I can only imagine what nifty features Apple could do with a broadcast channel. I eventually see them becoming a small carrier for the iPhone and other telephony product like a MVNO where they will handle their billing and service the whole way through. I figure about 5 years.
I'd love to see Apple acquire some Telephony IP centered around VOIP. I'd also love to see a solid PBX from Apple that puts Asterisk to shame. This would all coalesce into an Apple Unified Messaging Platform (AUMP) by 10.7. My emails, voicemail, notes, calendar, and entire life should be portable across hardware platforms and geography.
Folks there's too much fat there. By the time Aperture hits 3.0 there won't be a need for Photoshop for many people.
YES
3. Celemony Software- Makers of Melodyne the excellent pitch shifter and formant audio tool.
So you also think that "Innovation", "Melodyne" and "Apple" are pretty much interchangeable too
I'm sure there are plenty of areas the Apple wants to move towards but they aren't showing their hand yet.
Yup, if somewhat impatiently, I have to agree with you, Macworld announcment?
I'd love to see Apple acquire some Telephony IP centered around VOIP. I'd also love to see a solid PBX from Apple that puts Asterisk to shame. This would all coalesce into an Apple Unified Messaging Platform (AUMP) by 10.7. My emails, voicemail, notes, calendar, and entire life should be portable across hardware platforms and geography.
Nice, and where its heading.
P.s. Pixel farm look interesting
what about a wimax company??
Wi-Max will only have value in less populated areas, not so much in the cities... that being said, I'd like to recommend Clearwire (CLWR)....
1. Luxology- I'd buy'em and run then as a wholly owned subsidary a la Filemaker. That way I have access to excellent 3D talent whenever I need it.
Yes they should by luxology. But then again, why just stop with "just" a 3d modeling program.
Other companies apple should buy to go with luxology:
Natural Motion
Massive
Next limit
Laminar Research
Crytek
valve
Terragen
vatsim
Overall, I would like apple to develop a 3d modeling utility as well as a game engine, the latter being very unlikely. They would use the basic cry2engine, adding some crazy features of course, and then combine that with a steam like utility, except without all the bugs and more like the itunes store. Modo would be the core to their modeling and animation tool, with the other two companies providing built in plugins. Sandbox2 and modo would work perfectly together and the cry2engine would gain complex animations from euphoria and massive.
They fund the development of x-plane just to promote an already superior product, x-plane would also used the cry2engine and use a the steam utility to stream huge amounts of data in real time into x-plane. This data would then be interpreted by terragen, which would be built into the cry2engine, to create an amazing flight sim. And the whole thing would have to be fully online with weapons the work correctly, correct displaying of other players planes, and a host of other features vatsim does not currently provide.
but of course apple will never buy any of these companies and my dream for the most powerful, easy to use, and most complex game engine ever will remain unfulfilled.
unless it's for patent defense, prevent takeover, or product development, new products.
what was apples last "aquisition" anyone knows?? i'd thought they'd buy RIM but the iphone makes that pointless. maybe why they don't buy companies is because they have many better products like a better tivo
with all that cash if they don't spend it don't they pay big bucks in corp taxes?
unless it's for patent defense, prevent takeover, or product development, new products.
what was apples last "aquisition" anyone knows?? i'd thought they'd buy RIM but the iphone makes that pointless. maybe why they don't buy companies is because they have many better products like a better tivo
Apple acquired Silicon Color and Proximity about a year ago for the now Apple branded Color and Final Cut Server product.
You gain Alias Animation Suite plus all the CAD tools.
with all that cash if they don't spend it don't they pay big bucks in corp taxes?
unless it's for patent defense, prevent takeover, or product development, new products.
what was apples last "aquisition" anyone knows?? i'd thought they'd buy RIM but the iphone makes that pointless. maybe why they don't buy companies is because they have many better products like a better tivo
RIM is on borrowed time. They are moving into China knowing with the introduction of the iPhone in Europe there dominance will be compromised. They are getting into China a year or more before the inevitable--iPhone in China.
Discuss:
1. Luxology- I'd buy'em and run then as a wholly owned subsidary a la Filemaker. That way I have access to excellent 3D talent whenever I need it.
Maybe Side Effects software. Houdini has nodal compositing, which their EOL Shake app has. It's also a very good front end to renderman, which would make the Pixar folks happy. There's no Mac version of Houdini and it would be a powerful product to have access to.
2. The Pixel Farm- Makers of PFTrack (Match Moving) and other tools would be a boon to Apple's Pro Video apps.
Yeah they could even integrate that in with one of the previous apps. You get PFTrack plugins for Shake.
The problem I have with Apple buyouts is that although it sometimes seems like a good idea, they often don't put in enough effort to making the product truly great. From what I can tell, their buyout of Nothing Real to acquire Shake improved Shake very little overall. Bug fixes and Quicktime integration but nothing major and rather than progress it, they seem to be building something from scratch, decomposing Shake and using what they need.
AutoDesk.
You gain Alias Animation Suite plus all the CAD tools.
Maya's kinda bloated like the CS software though. It's powerful but it's a big project to take on. Also, the likes of AutoCAD are industry standard but not popular with users. It's one of those cases where a really innovative app could steal its crown. They also have Combustion but Apple don't need it with Shake etc.
The problem I have with Apple buyouts is that although it sometimes seems like a good idea, they often don't put in enough effort to making the product truly great. From what I can tell, their buyout of Nothing Real to acquire Shake improved Shake very little overall. Bug fixes and Quicktime integration but nothing major and rather than progress it, they seem to be building something from scratch, decomposing Shake and using what they need.
Yes I noticed that too. After the last update to Shake I realized that we weren't going to see any major new functionality. Shortly after that rumors of Phenomenon came and Shake went EOL. Whatever they having coming will be cool but it will be conservative in ways.
Here's another target.
Doubletake- Data Protection and Recovery software that works over a WAN. This dovetails into Apple's Media strategy and burgeoning OS X Server business. Future versions of Time Machine would have WAN replication features built right in.
Maybe Side Effects software. Houdini has nodal compositing, which their EOL Shake app has. It's also a very good front end to renderman, which would make the Pixar folks happy. There's no Mac version of Houdini and it would be a powerful product to have access to.
Yeah they could even integrate that in with one of the previous apps. You get PFTrack plugins for Shake.
The problem I have with Apple buyouts is that although it sometimes seems like a good idea, they often don't put in enough effort to making the product truly great. From what I can tell, their buyout of Nothing Real to acquire Shake improved Shake very little overall. Bug fixes and Quicktime integration but nothing major and rather than progress it, they seem to be building something from scratch, decomposing Shake and using what they need.
Maya's kinda bloated like the CS software though. It's powerful but it's a big project to take on. Also, the likes of AutoCAD are industry standard but not popular with users. It's one of those cases where a really innovative app could steal its crown. They also have Combustion but Apple don't need it with Shake etc.
The point with AutoCAD is to do something AutoDesk won't do and that is to make the DWG/DXF a revamped open standard.
By making this accessible new avenues would open up.
Alias Tools could easily be partitioned out and revamped.
-Roxio's Mac product lineup. Toast as an iApp. 'nuff said.
-Transgaming. Yes, Steve Jobs thinks gaming is a waste of time. Many of us don't. Instead of the porting houses we have now, Apple needs to have some kind of support/ porting team that will help the original developers quickly and easily create Mac versions and ship them in box with their PC counterparts. Just think of what cider could become if they had Apple's full resources.
-Velocity Micro. Yes, I know many of you have some kind of irrational loathing of anything or anyone even remotely conventional. However, this small company has a lot of potential. With a little tweaking, they could get the consumer/corporate/gaming customers that apple currently has no chance at. Style, quality, and margins are very close to what Apple currently has and its a respected name among higher end PC customers. They also have retail agreements with both best Buy and Circuit City. With a little product consolidation and the introduction of both a mATX system and Mac OS X, they could do wonderful things for Apple's coffers.
-Sun Microsystems. Probably not affordable but Sun would really help Apple in the server/workstation department. it would take a while to roll their products into the lineup and merge some of Solaris' better features into Mac OS X, but it would make an already good situation a whole lot better. Oh yeah, should the relationships on the x86 side go south the way they did with the PowerPC, Apple would have its own CPU architecture.
1. Luxology- I'd buy'em and run then as a wholly owned subsidary a la Filemaker. That way I have access to excellent 3D talent whenever I need it.
Personally i think Apple really need it. And if they could actually use Modo as a base to work on an innovative CAD program to kick AutoDesk 's butt.
-Elgato systems. I don't care if Steve Jobs doesn't like TV, buying Elgato would seriously help the Mac as a media center and also help to make AppleTV viable. Oh yeah, it's it would also be cheap.
-Roxio's Mac product lineup. Toast as an iApp. 'nuff said.
-Transgaming. Yes, Steve Jobs thinks gaming is a waste of time. Many of us don't. Instead of the porting houses we have now, Apple needs to have some kind of support/ porting team that will help the original developers quickly and easily create Mac versions and ship them in box with their PC counterparts. Just think of what cider could become if they had Apple's full resources.
-Sun Microsystems. Probably not affordable but Sun would really help Apple in the server/workstation department. it would take a while to roll their products into the lineup and merge some of Solaris' better features into Mac OS X, but it would make an already good situation a whole lot better. Oh yeah, should the relationships on the x86 side go south the way they did with the PowerPC, Apple would have its own CPU architecture.
Instead of Buying Elgato apple will need some open source helper to work on TV chips drivers. So all existing USB TV extension would work on Mac.
Roxio's Toast is good, very good. But the thing is that apart from Toast there are no thing that apple want from Roxio. And Depending on how much Roxio cost i think Apple could self develop a Buring apps.
Transgaming - Apple would properly fund development rather then buying it.
I always think Sun is a good buy for apple. I dont know why. They could have split the deal between Apple and Intel where Intel gets the CPU part and apple gets the Server part. And Since Sun dont own java anymore, is there really anything apple need from Sun that warrant a 20B buy?