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Cant see this happening. Although if it did then maybe we would finally get some decent audio chips in the iPods. Sonys walkman range are superior for sound quality. The bundled headphones you get are far superior too.
 
Kind of makes you wonder if apple also has a build of mac os x for cell processors or a build of ios for it....

But I don't see any advantage in buying Sony. Perhaps apple will by some company that makes cutting edge memory products or battery tech. That would be more in line with previous buys....
 
isn't sony bigger than apple??

Apple is worth nearly 9 times as much as Sony, and draws in nearly 20% more gross profits than Sony, with nearly 20 times the net income.

And while takeovers don't work quite that way, Apple could *almost* buy both Sony and Dell. (Sony's market cap is $33 Billion, Dell's is $28 Billion.)


Kind of makes you wonder if apple also has a build of mac os x for cell processors or a build of ios for it....

Yeah, it was called "Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard" (or earlier.) The Cell processor is remarkably similar in architecture to the PowerPC G5. One theory was that Apple abandoned PowerPC for Intel specifically because IBM cared more about Cell and Xenon (the CPU in the Xbox 360, also a PowerPC G5-derivative) than PowerPC "proper".
 
isn't sony bigger than apple??

Somebody hasn't been watching the news for quite a while... :) Apple is bigger than almost everyone these days. Certainly larger than everyone in tech/consumer electronics.

Apple: $282.89 billion
SONY: $33.68 billion

Those are market caps as of 10/25/10. And, as the article stated, Apple has $51 billion in cash and cash-equivalent. So while I think the idea the Apple would have the slightest interest in SONY is ludicrous, they could walk in and write a check if they wanted. ;)

EDIT: Wow, I was slow to type... Everyone beat me!
 
I don't see Apple acquiring Sony. Maybe there are advantages but they will inherit a lot of bloated marketing strategies and products, I don't think it's what Apple wants. They want, they need simplicity from product lines to marketing to production.

The most viable options are Facebook, which makes a lot of sense and Netflix which again makes a lot of sense. The rest are just names thrown in the hat just to be more names in the hat.

Disney?!? Why in the hell? Who's the dumb ass that even thought about it??? Steve is the largest single shareholder, every time Apple needed support to launch something: Movies, TV Shows, Rental TV Shows, Disney was there. That's the advantage of having common board members. What other benefits could there be that would justify a multi-billion dollar acquisition?
 
Strange, but I don't think Sony would want to sell now. They're doing okay with their cameras and TVs and stuff... I don't think they would consider being bought.

Also, what would Apple do with all the stuff Sony makes? Would they just shut it all down? Or would they rebrand it all Apple? This doesn't make sense.

Apple buying Adobe would be more logical, but I don't think Adobe would want to sell itself either.
 
Would it be TOO MUCH if they give me 1 million dollars? Would it REALLY make a difference for them? I would love to buy my parents a decent house...
 
Strange, but I don't think Sony would want to sell now. They're doing okay with their cameras and TVs and stuff... I don't think they would consider being bought.

Also, what would Apple do with all the stuff Sony makes? Would they just shut it all down? Or would they rebrand it all Apple? This doesn't make sense.

Apple buying Adobe would be more logical, but I don't think Adobe would want to sell itself either.

It doesn't really matter too much what the company (i.e. the board) wants to do for listed companies - they could launch a hostile takeover and if the stockholders sell, then they get the company.

It really depends on who the major stockholders are: If there are enough "disinterested" (i.e. not involved in running the company) stockholders and the price is right then they may sell.
 
I really doubt they plan on doing this.

Not only that but I doubt if the Japanese government would allow such a buyout. Sony may have had soft sales recently but they are far from being insolvent. I cannot see Apple buying out such a foreign entity.

Apple swooping up NetFlix makes the most sense of those listed.
 
Well, at Macworld 2005 Steve did say that even though Apple and Sony are competitors, they will always remain strategic partners. He even invited Sony president on stage to do a speech.

Who knows what may be happening behind the scenes now. I seriously doubt that this will ever happen, however.
 
i've been hating sony with a passion for 10 years now

had a terrible experience with their customer service and went out of my way not to buy any of their products eversince

so yeah, apple acquiring sony would be weird
 
Seems unlikely

Sony is a huge and rather poorly organized company. They make a huge variety of technology products, not to mention the film and music side of the company. Hard for me to picture apple who has one of the most streamlined product line ups wanting to buy and deal with a company who has products in all kinds of random categories. It just seems like they have vastly different corporate cultures.

While I think it has gotten better in recent years I have always heard all the divisions within sony compete more with each other then they do with sony's competitors.

It seems more likely that apple would maybe just but some of Sony's product divisions, like the portable media, or cell phone divisions rather then the entire company.

I think more focused companies are more of apples style in picking acquisitions.
 
Apple buying Adobe would be more logical, but I don't think Adobe would want to sell itself either.

Hostile takeover :)

I would like to see Apple take over Adobe and :

integrate the best parts of CS into Aperture
release Dreamweaver as the new iWeb
drop flash
take the best of the rest, make it more Mac like and release just for mac.
:D
 
Given Apple's near monopoly status on digital music sales I really, really don't think Apple would be allowed to own Sony Pictures or Sony Music for competition reasons, and there's precious little advantage to buying the rest of the company for Apple - and integrating Sony's operations into Apple's would, given the cultural and international differences, be very difficult. Anyway, Apple's business model has for many years served to reduce the value of content, so where would be the business advantage in buying the sector where you've spent a decade collapsing margins?

I still don't see Apple buying a big online name either - as some have mooted, it'd make much more sense to go and buy Toshiba or Hynix and get their hands on reduced Flash memory costs for their product lines. And much cheaper.

Phazer
 
Technology/Innovation wise... Sony seems to be the closest consumer electronics company to Apple. The acquisition makes sense.

As a consumer, however, I would rather see them as two separate entities in healthy competition.
 
Nintendo would Sh-- themselves!

I remember a while back there was a story on here that talked about how Nintendo regarded Apple as the "Enemy of the Future". Can you imagine how much they would crap their pants if the Playstation, the Mac, and the iDevices were suddenly under one roof?! :eek:
 
Hostile takeover :)

I would like to see Apple take over Adobe and :

integrate the best parts of CS into Aperture
release Dreamweaver as the new iWeb
drop flash
take the best of the rest, make it more Mac like and release just for mac.
:D

If Apple bought Adobe they wouldn't dump Flash. Lets make that quite clear. They'd just make it run better on Macs (since the issue with Flash on Macs is that Apple hides the direct graphic APIs in OSX that Flash has access to in Windows - but if both companies share source code, which they'd do if they were the same company, then that issue goes away). But Steve wouldn't be allowed to dump Flash - the studios would pull all their content from the iTunes store first given the importance of Flash and secure streaming to their business models online.

Phazer
 
I remember a while back there was a story on here that talked about how Nintendo regarded Apple as the "Enemy of the Future". Can you imagine how much they would crap their pants if the Playstation, the Mac, and the iDevices were suddenly under one roof?! :eek:
If Apple wants to buy a gaming powerhouse, then buying Nintendo would actually make more sense than buying Sony. I feel that in many regards, Nintendo's identity is closer to Apple's than Sony's is.
 
Apple and Adobe... interesting strengthening of software for the Mac.

How about a phasing out of Photoshop for the PC? (Just kidding).

Apple and Sony... not sure if Blu-Ray will have any importance ten years from now. TV, entertainment electronics (connection to iPods, iPads, Apple TV here?)... Apple into gaming? If this really happens I'm really curious what the most important thing in Sony is for Apple.

Netflix? I don't think so. The whole disc shipping thing will be obsolete ten years from now (even though it's so strong now). Except if the improvement of US infrastructure gets axed.

Very interesting news.
 
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