First, call me a negative Nancy but the rumors that Apple could buy Sony – Lord knows Sony needs some better management – are false. This sort of thing seems more like a solo Steve Jobs move than a move by Apple proper. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s take a look at where all this speculation comes from.
In his earnings call, Jobs said, when asked what they would do with the $51 billion in cash it has lying around:
“We would like to continue to keep our powder dry, because we do feel that there are one or more strategic opportunities in the future.”
That seems fair. Maybe he might want to buy a start-up in cloud media management. Or maybe he wants a UI team for the next iPad. But no. Analysts posited that homeboy would buy Adobe, Sony and/or Disney. Why the heck not! As we all know, if Apple does anything poorly it’s stay on mission and snapping up Sony or Disney would be as far from mission as possible. It’s a natural! A secretive computer company buying either the least relevant CE operation in the world and/or a movie studio that already owns a former Jobs property seems like a great lateral move. Let’s not even talk about Adobe because Apple buying Adobe is just asking for an anti-trust suit. In short, the supposition is ludicrous.
Generally, this is more blue-sky imagineering by clueless analysts who posit one thing and the market, like the herd animals they are, extrapolate further to make a little short-term cash. I call major bullshiz.