Who said acquiring is best? Take it from an M&A guy: Many, if not most, large aquisitions fail to achieve their projected synergies or growth. Furthermore, many acquirers get into bidding wars before "winning" the bid at a price that cannot be matched by synergies or growth.
Short of all-out aquisition, Apple seems to wisely and modestly establish profitable partnerships and some simpler alliances to test the waters and to gain where possible (knowledge, exclusive technologies, etc) without sacrificing focus.
By contrast, some competitors in internet and video domains are frequently short on revenue. So, they adopt a cheap tactic of buying companies with revenue to augment their own each year. However they must also integrate these companies - at a cost to focus and sometimes losing talent in the chaos.
But all companies do acquire smaller companies occassionally for the intellectual property and talented teams - to keep them from being acquired by the competition.
Know your niche, be yourself, and look to ally or partner via contract before looking to outright acquire. Take Bloomberg's investment banker (IB) sour grapes with the same weight as a grain of salt.
