Adobe?

.1%. That's all I want. Heck, I'd settle for even .01%

maybe they should by Microsoft with that money

Buy an island.

Apple Island.

Nearly $23B? Bail out the mortgage crisis. Somebody's got to.

Seriously, dotMac was not particularly reliable, and MobileMe still is reported to be having problems even after Apple blogged that everything is great.

Merger and Acquisition activity is nothing more that a way to distract investors.

Furthermore, M&A activity effectively masks accounting irregularities and or falsified gross income/profitability figures.

This has the effect of postponing bad news. Basically it's "Hide it while we scramble for cover".

One company I have felt for a long time that Apple should buy is Sandisk. Apple uses a huge amount of flash memory and Sandisk is a leading producer. With Apples recent purchase of a chip maker I think a Sandisk purchase makes perfect sense.

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Guest wrote:
maybe they should by Microsoft with that money

My worry would be that, sitting on so much cash, and with its stock price not fully reflecting that book value, esp. given the weak dollar (although that cuts a couple of ways), some not-so-benevolent factor could attempt a buyout, a la Maxxam's takeover of now-bankrupt and defunct Pacific Lumber Co. Also, with inflation about to explode, hard assets are better than cash. I wonder what Jobs is thinking on this.

Mergers are no substitute for vision. Agreed. However...

Might want to rethink the claim that failed mergers or mergers that take time are damaging to a company. Intuitively suggesting that mergers cause a distraction or create inefficiencies simply because they take time or because they fail does not take into account other significant issues - financials, services, future plans etc. Additionally, a failed merger might prompt a company to rethink its strategy or focus its goals, which as the potential to be beneficial down the road.

I'm not suggesting that the idea is wrong, but just that it's a little half-baked in its current form. I'd like to see some more affirming evidence.

Buy Crossover, accelerate the development of CrossoverMac. Integrate it into MacOS so that it supports the WinAPI natively. Run windows applications without the need for a windows license. Release MacOS for any hardware. Watch Microsoft panic

Why not give some of the money back to the shareholders.

tik tok
there is no way you were suggesting that someone could buy apple were you?

when was the last time any company bought another company worth 141 billion in market cap, plus 23 billion in cash, that would never happen. Only exxon mobil would be able to do that, and that is not happening.

Apple doesn't need to spend the cash right now, when the deal is right they will know what to do. If they should buy anyone, its Nvidia. This would add a great line of graphics chips and other processors and make macs even more integrated. With a market cap of just 6.3 billion, Nvidia would be an easy takeover.

If Apple have more money than they can use, then maybe they should give some back to the shareholders as a dividend.

That would cause all the shorts in the stock to rethink their positions and possibly cover them.

OK, fine, the idea makes almost no sense at all... but I'd really like to see what the most innovative game company + the most innovative computer company could do if they got together. I seem to recall the Nintendo president talking about the possibility of making games for the iPhone... not something I'd expected. I had expected Nintendo to suddenly say, "The iPhone is okay, but here's our replacement for the DS that we've had just waiting in the labs for the past 4 years now!"

Adobe
Tivo
AMD
Sprint
Netflix

"Apple should by Sprint"

Well Sprint is in a bit of trouble and is selling off/leasing out a lot of their towers. However, they are a CDMA system and the iPhone is GSM. I don't know how much work it would take to make a change over for the iPhone to run on CDMA, or change the Sprint system over to GSM (probably a bigger job). But the thought of Apple owning the whole cell phone ~ cell service widget is interesting.

Open more retail stores?

After buying something for themselves, Apple should seriously consider getting one of their biggest supporters a gift. If it wasn't for the incompetence of Ballmer, there is no way Apple would have made as much progress as it has. A mention at one of Apples product releases would be nice too.

And sell GM Mini's & Ford Nano's.

Seriously though, they aren't going to buy Sprint, they could do a buyout of Tmobile ($74 billion, & GSM network with international presence), but the problem with any cell provider is they're regional. They won't buy Sandisk, they bought P.A. Semi for the design team, not the hardware.

The real question is what will they build next? They'll flush out the Apple TV & media delivery, but they'll also work on supplying end-to-end small business systems, which is where they'll make the first significant inroads to the commercial market. The next development with the iPhone is to integrate in-store purchasing with it via iTunes accounts, which will require POS integration at some level in the store.

This points to some sort of accounting and/or POS system as the next most important arena for Apple. They could buy Intuit for $8.7 billion and still have good cash reserves. Integrate the Server version into the Xserve, which would immediately push Xserves into a lot of office spaces.

I do not think Apple's computers are overpriced.
I know they are competitive on price/performance.
But, if they are really making this much money, then lower the prices, attract more users, and make it up in volume.
The increased marketshare would be well worth it.
Just think of it as an investment.

I think they should buy Nintendo. The Wii is currently waxing the floor against the Xbox 360 and the PS3. I think that the iphone technologies mixed with the Nintendo DS would make a remarkable machine and the overall culture (aside from national differences) of the two companies are very similar. Add to that, both companies are infatuated with white plastic...

Apple should buy these two companies just for their intellectual property and cross licensing agreements. Now watch the techworld squirm.

Apple should buy:

A nice cup of coffee and a danish. That's what I'd do.

It is not healthy to have more than Microsoft. I will take the diff !!

I am an Apple user !! I deserve it !!

Adobe is a solid company that totally dominates its niches: PostScript, Acrobat, PhotoShop are all the best. That part fits Apple's profile. But Apple is driven primarily by innovation, and Adobe is no longer an innovator -- they are a mature software house. What would Apple gain by acquiring them? Not new technology or new ideas. Not a useful corner of the market.

Apple doesn't buy successful mature companies. It buys ideas and technologies.

The subject says it all. There is a lot of synergy there, CE, high end instruments, movie and record distribution, mobile phones, TV's. It just needs $45B

Then with the HP's Computer Division, they'll finally have a decent Computer to put on the market.

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Anonymous wrote:
Then with the HP's Computer Division, they'll finally have a decent Computer to put on the market.

Apple has always been the choice for the creative folks. It would be a smart move that could grow the company immediately...

Profit share with their own employees! A lot of us do not get bonus's or stock options. Many times I feel like were just "janitors".