I doubt they could buy Google ... not even if it were for sale.
Not quite. Google has a market value of about $250 billion and Apple only has about $150 billion in cash.... of course that is a comparison of total market value to how much cash on hand a company has, so its pretty impressive.
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I wonder how long its going to take Apple to get their maps on par. I guess we'll see "Maps 2" during the iOS 7 preview, with new features.
Its being updated every day. Just recently I noticed a bunch of new POIs in Charlotte, NC.
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Or they won't sell. DropBox didn't.
Some companies enjoy being independent. The people that work there aren't looking to be absorbed by another big company. There are many factors to be considered.
When/if they sell, however - both parties will negotiate. So no party here is/was "stupid" for walking away at this point.
You have to admire people that can say no to quitting work and taking a billion dollars, so they can continue to get up and go to work every day. I would not be one of them. I'd much rather spend time with my family then hitting the office every day no matter what I was doing, especially if money was no longer a concern.
As an avid Apple fan though, I do wish both Dropbox and Waze would sell out! I think there is a huge benefit in buying Waze (for Apple) as it goes a long way towards looking like they are serious about fixing their maps reputation. Notice I said maps reputation not just maps. For 90% of us it works just fine. Apple may fix a hundred data points a day, but most will go un-noticed by the vast majority of us simply because we don't live in that area. Making big acquisitions makes a big public statement.