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Comment by cobychapple | Hacker News Reader

Completely wild, uninformed, and ignorant guess: They'll buy Twitter or Intel.

The only major software company I can fathom Apple buying is Adobe, and even in that case there'd have to be a seismic shift in Apple's strategy.

It could be Adobe. They've dumped Flash. They've embracing the iPad and released some truly innovative apps. Despite the historical rift between them and Apple, their tools are still the go-to suite for virtually every app created for iOS, and a strong contender when users seek alternatives to Apple's offerings like the Final Cut Pro X thing. Then there's this:

"I'm dying to do a blog on ADBE stock but can't do so now (we're in a quiet period). Maybe Monday, after earnings."

https://twitter.com/#!/kasthomas/status/180773095903207425

And the tweet right before that one:

"AAPL still cheap at $585. If you believe in next year's earnings == $50/share and a P/E multiple of 15, the stock should be at 750."

https://twitter.com/#!/kasthomas/status/180772911911682048

If they bought Adobe, then the enterprise marketing at Apple would really be in for a change (Adobe has some big enterprise offerings). AMD / ATI is easily in their range.

Adobe have been actively downsizing their enterprise offerings and refocusing on media.

“Adobe has made a decisive choice to move away from traditional enterprise software markets and to focus on digital marketing and media. It will also shift aggressively to a cloud delivery model. These moves follow an August 2011 message to customers that Adobe would no longer update LiveCycle Content Services ES2. These actions signal that LiveCycle Process Management ES2 and LiveCycle Content Services ES2 are no longer important to the company’s strategic direction.” http://www.gartner.com/id=1850714

Intel's market cap is about twice their cash reserves, isn't it?

Less than twice, but still substantially more. Apple has $98bn [1] on hand and Intel's market cap is 138.54bn [2]

[1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-rt-us-applebre82f...

[2] http://www.google.com/finance?q=intel

So they could easily afford a controlling share, not that they'd have anything interesting to do with it. As far as the Mac goes, Intel is doing more or less exactly what Apple would want them to do, and as far as iOS goes, Intel is already irrelevant.

If anything Apple seems to be moving away from Intel chips and emphasizing their own ARM designs. Much more likely they will release an ARM-based laptop.

Nope--running x86 software natively (see: Windows, Linux) is still a competitive necessity. If Apple wanted their laptops to run on embedded-class processors with an x86-incompatible ISA and no other venders than themselves, they would have stayed with PowerPC.

I don't expect Apple to abandon x86 any time soon but I would not be at all surprised to see them bring out an ARM-based Macbook Air with fantastic battery life and no heat. Most laptop users have their CPUs idling 80-90% of the time as it is.

I don't see any upsides for them in an Intel acquisition.

What's the point of a MacBook Air that's x86-incompatible? Unless they abandon x86 they'd either need to emulate it or fragment their product line, neither of which is an appealing option.

On one hand they couldn't afford Intel, and on the other, Twitter wouldn't even be a blip on their cash reserves.

In some ways I wish you were right, but I think anti-competition watch dogs may not approve of them buying Intel.

Well, they could always use some of that cash to buy the anti-competition watch dogs too ;)

If there was any kind of major merger would this just be a conference call?

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