The rumors about Apple possibly buying Twitter, are flying thick and fast here in the States.. Apple is known for keeping a huge pile of cash in it’s numbered Swiss bank account (Well, GodJobs does). But right now it's particularly flush, with almost thirty billion dollars in cash. An amount that works out to more than $31 a share. At any other company, keeping that kind of money on hand would have investors howling for a dividend, a stock buyback, or a big acquisition.
Apple doesn’t do those kind of things, but keeps shareholders happy by keeping the stock price up and meeting forecasts. A lot of people would like to see a share buyback happen, but as long as the bottom line looks good, there won’t be too many complainers.
That’s why there are so many rumors about possible acquisitions. Various Silicon Valey blogs are quoting semi-credible sources that Apple is in late-stage negotiations to buy Twitter for $700 million in cash and would like to unveil the deal by the start of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in early June. I’ll believe it when I see it… It just doesn’t make sense… And that’s one thing GodJobs has plenty of.
Jobs is probably sitting back and looking at how Google is struggling to monetise YouTube, and wondering how would he get Twitter to fund itself. If I were him I'd run a mile, as I can't see a way of Twitter making money any time soon.
You'd think that Apple has better things to spend its money on. Becoming a content company, for example. John X Cringley (only on the money about 25% of the time) has a suggestion here
www.cringely.com/.../the-future-of-internet-tv-in-america
Cringely's best insight about Apple is that its real mission is to Do Stuff that Makes Steve Jobs Look Cool. Becoming the next HBO would do that. Twitter is many things. But compared to, say, Pixar, it's just not really very cool, is it?
Mike & Brian...
You're both right... I can't see Jobs falling for this, certainly not for $700 million. You've only to look at the sink hole YouTube has been for Google to realize that monetizing these things (certainly at the purchase prices) is not going to happen.
Cheers/George
Jobs has far more nouse than to part with $700mill for some online fad of the momentbut he knows he might get $70mills worth of free publicity just by having the rhumors
Anyhow George, yer name is way toocommon so I struggled to "Friend" youon Facebook & Twitter
Can you link me a clue or two old lad ?
; o )
Cheez
e-mail addresses are big business.
George Parker
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