A Wired article is suggesting that Sony should buy Apple . This kind of thing floats up once in a while and some of the reasoning behind it does make sense, Apple could definitly benefit from some more exposure and larger manufacturing might would probably help with lowering cost but if something like that happened I think the approach would have to be very soft.
why doesn’t some ambitious company with deep pockets and distribution muscle adopt Apple and hold it aloft as the trophy it really is? The corporate Daddy Warbucks would get to anoint its product lines with Apple’s creative mojo, turbocharging revenue and snatching market share from its imagination-challenged competitors… It’s working for BMW. In 1995, the very, very serious automaker bought Mini, an obscure British company with a sense of humor; today, BMW is struggling to keep up with orders. Mini Coopers swarm like racing-striped gnats up and down US roadways, making so many SUVs look like the big, unwieldy bully boxes they are.
If Sony proceded like BMW with the Minis it could work, I agree. The problem is that I dont see how a company stuck with infighting between it’s units so bad that it cant produce a decent MP3 player because the unit who could make them faces off with the music unit who feels it encourages pirating. How a company like that could own Apple and leave it free enough to keep doing it’s thing, I just cant see it happening. Because of that, I dont think Steve should sell. No big worry though because I dont think he can accept someone lording over him, however lightly and even handedly.
I think the future of Apple is in keeping the direction they have right now, i.e. innovating continually and sliding slowly but surely in the space where computers, consumer electronics and fashionable (or call it coolness) intersect. They’ve already got two of those covered and the iPod/Music Store are the first steps for the third which is why Apple buying Tivo would make more sense to my mind then Jobs selling Apple to Sony.