Sony stock surged on Tuesday, fuelled by speculation that Apple could buy Sony with its $51 billion reserve. The source of this rumor? During last week’s earnings report, CEO Steve Jobs was asked what the company planned to do with the large amount of cash it had on hand. Steve hinted that there might be an acquisition upcoming: “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,” he said. Eric Savitz writing in Barron’s mentioned Adobe, Sony, or possibly Disney as acquisition targets.
Sony and Apple also came up in discussion the week before in Bloomberg’s piece on Apple, when former CEO John Sculley revealed that Steve Jobs wanted Apple to be more like Sony and less like Microsoft.
Analysts were skeptical of the possible deal, saying that any potential acquisition of Sony would be a hostile takeover, and that Sony wouldn’t willingly allow itself to be bought.
What would Apple do with Sony? Recent acquisitions by Apple have been of small companies, and mainly have been for their technology or their ideas. There was LaLa, the digital music service; Intrinsity, the chip manufacturer; remember Siri, the amazing voice recognition search app?; and Quattro Wireless, the mobile ad company.
But Sony? That’s a giant behemoth compared to these companies.
Would Apple retool all of Sony’s manufacturing lines to make MacBook Airs? Start making Apple PlayStations? Kill off the PSP? Apple TV sets, minus the Google TV integration? Revive the Walkman brand?
I’m not sure that Apple wants to be like anybody anymore. They are good at being who they are, and it’s unclear how taking over a company like Sony would help them be better at being Apple.
Article Via AppleInsider
