

Apple might acquire Sony? - spcmnspff
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69P0FX20101026

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IdeaHamster
Sony makes the Playstation, Vaio Computers, Walkmen (well, not anymore),
BluRay, Cybershot cameras, Bravia TVs…going to Amazon and just searching for
Sony under electronics indicates that there are over 50,000 items for sale.
Certainly some dups, but Sony has A LOT of SKUs…

…and they made $17.6B profit last year.

Apple makes the MacBook Pro, MacBook, MacBook Air, Mac Pro, iMac, Mac Mini,
iPad, iPhone, iPod Classic, iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle, and iPod Touch along with
some peripherals…

…and they made $17.2B profit last year. And some would claim that Apple has
let the SKU list get out of hand over the past few years…there's probably some
fat trimming in the company's future...

Two completely different corporate philosophies. Chance of merger: 0%.

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megablast
There is nothing Sony could do to help sell any Apple products. They have a
few stores, but nothing as good as Apple's stores. The computers they sell run
Windows, Apple would not keep that side. They already sell mp3 players, why
would Apple keep them both around? They sell crappy phones with ericsson, no
need for that.

It would also put Apple/Sony at odds with all the other media companies, they
would lose support.

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mlinsey
Amazing the number of rumors flying after two vague, non-committal sentences
in the earnings call last week.

We should start a betting pool for what companies Apple will buy. Oh wait,
such a pool already exists and is called the stock market...

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rimantas
The most amazing thing in these rumors is how dumb they appear to me. Not sure
if it says more about rumors or me. Either way I see no point for Apple in
buying Sony, or Facebook. What for??? Does someone just pick a random name
from the list of companies that are affordable to Apple and starts to
speculate on that? The other thing I cannot wrap my head around is stock
markets. The silliest thing influence them, that sure does not leave a good
impression on me. Maybe it's just me.

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Tamerlin
"What for???"

Not to imply that I think it's likely, but Sony DOES have something that Apple
might benefit from: manufacturing. Don't forget, Sony makes quite a few
semiconductor products -- including, for example, the sensors in Nikon's
digital SLRs.

Overall though, I agree with the prevailing opinion, that it's pretty
unlikely.

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nailer
A great opportunity to go short on Sony. Apple wont buy them - Apple buy small
companies that make successful products, which Sony has not for quite some
time.

Make money when the rumor pops and short.

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annon
While I also don't think Apple will buy Sony, they kinda are in the same place
Apple was in the 90's pre-jobs. They have a strong brand but make a TON of
mediocre products. Jobs coming in and axing everything non-essential to a
small "only the best" product line up could really turn the company around. I
wouldn't write them off just because of their current lineup.

~~~
fab13n
You're arguing that Jobs could fix Sony, which is probably true.

But there are many companies which could be fixed by a CEO such as Jobs. What
brick would Sony bring to Apple's offer that makes sense to buy rather than
make?

* brand recognition? Sony's isn't too bad, but it's leagues away from Apple's.

* a bunch of Wintel PC with nice-looking casings? Come on!

* a bunch of almost adequate MP3 players? LOL.

* rights on their music and movies portfolio? This sounds much better, but I doubt they would buy the whole Sony-the-consumer-appliances-maker to get Sony-the-music-major.

I fail to see what would make Sony valuable specifically to Apple.

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schmidp
Why would Apple acquire Sony?

Blue-ray? Apple thinks optical media is dead.

Playstation? Apple has it's own gaming devices: Mac, iPhone/iPod, Apple TV (if
they add an App Store).

TVs? Apple can build it's own TV hardware, they don't need Sony.

Talent? Takeovers of this scale are very hard. Apple probably has a very
different culture than Sony. Apple could get key talent significantly cheaper
than acquiring the whole company.

Components? Same as talent and licensing is probably much less trouble and
cheaper.

Music/Movies? Creating content is not what Apple is about. Apple creates tools
for content creators and content consumers.

B2B? Apple/Steve is mostly interested in the consumer market.

The article also mentions Disney as a target. I thought Steve is the or one of
the biggest single shareholders of Disney. Jobs is also on the Disney board,
so he already has influence on Disney, without spending huge amounts of Apples
cash.

~~~
dfox
Well, Apple probably can't make TV hardware in same sense as Sony can make it.
Sony is almost completely vertically integrated when it comes to TVs and
consumer electronics.

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hugh3
Why would Apple want to be making TVs, at least in the sense that TVs
currently exist? The profit margins must be razor thin, because you're
competing with a damn-near-indistinguishable product from LG and Samsung, and
prices keep getting driven down every year.

The only way they'd do it is to make some sort of integrated TV/AppleTV thing.
But I'm not sure that's really to their advantage versus just selling an
AppleTV and letting folks plug it into their existing TVs.

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thought_alarm
Sony makes really great hardware, and (most of the time) utterly wretched
software. Sony could be a much better company with Apple's help. Not sure how
such a merger helps Apple, though.

~~~
bad_user
I've worked with Sony engineers myself and have experienced what it's like
dealing with a (successful) Japanese company.

Such a merger will never happen and if it does it will be a dangerous move for
both. People never think about cultural match when discussing mergers.

~~~
anatoly
So what's it like? Tell us more.

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kmfrk
I'd like to know who are starting these rumours. I saw them on a videogame
blog (along with rumours about Netflix, Adobe, EA, Facebook, and Disney -
basically all of which are ridiculous speculations).

Now I'm seeing Reuters keeping the story alive. Again, ridiculous.

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nirajr
I don't know why Apple would want to do that. How Sony looks at hardware,
software and their product line-is is something I'd call very 'traditional' -
(1) hardware is important, just patch in some software that can make users
manage to us the hardware. (2) Build so much stuff that everyone can find
something in the line-up that suits them (3) Keep the content business and
delivery far off from the products.

I see fundamental differences between the two companies. What Apple gets by
buying Sony is control over a brand that is instantly identifiable across the
world (come to India to know what I mean). That might probably be of huge
value to Apple, as Apple is definitely not seen as a 'people's brand' around
here.

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brisance
_Apple should acquire the rights to Steam from Valve. It makes a good fit for
their business:

1) Prevent competition on the Mac app store 2) Proven distribution/scalability
3) Instant community that can bolster Ping

_Edited. Brainfart, put "Sony" there

~~~
maguay
You do mean Apple instead of Sony here, right?

~~~
brisance
Yeah, fixed it. Thanks for the catch.

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celalo
Apple is obviously on top of their career. But the fact that they climbed up
insanely fast relying on only one or two products. That's good, that is great,
of course I appreciate their success. However they also experienced a near
death. If it was not iPod they would be so dead already. So they still do not
give me the confidence that they will be on top forever. Hope they don't
acquire Sony, so we don't lose them both in case Apple falls.

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jayphelps
I think Apple buying Adobe makes more sense than Sony..but even still, not
likely. With Sony's headquarters in Japan and all, Steve Jobs can't have the
control he'd want. And getting rid of the Sony HQ and/or massive presence
there is a crazy idea.

If they did buy them, I don't think it'd be for a merger of any kind. But I'm
certainly no expert at these sorts of things. I've been wrong before!

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redthrowaway
Pie in the sky rumours, but I will say one thing:

If Apple did buy Sony, the PS4 would have an _awesome_ controller.

~~~
pufuwozu
The first thing that came to mind was the hockey puck.

~~~
alexyoung
I like a lot of Apple products but I've never used one of their mice that I've
liked, even the new ones. Maybe it's because I once got stuck with that damned
puck for a few weeks.

~~~
redthrowaway
Mice are something they just never quite figured out. It's like they have some
subconscious aversion to right-clicking. Even the trackpad on my MBP refuses
to do it half the time.

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erikstarck
Sony is not one company but more like multiple subcompanies working under the
same brand. A merger with Apple would ruin both companies.

I have a hard time imagining even a close cooperation between the two. Apple
always wants to control the entire value chain. Apple TV running on Sony TVs?
Not likely.

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protomyth
Apple would absolutely have to gut Sony to make it work, and would lose a huge
amount of value just to merging or cutting areas. Apple could not leave any of
the Sony leadership intact in any area Apple had an existing business.

I would actually believe an AMD acquisition before this.

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jonhendry
Apple will buy Sony and Facebook. Right after Apple acquires Fermilab and the
LHC. Which would make about as much sense.

Most of these merger rumors have supposed benefits that would be more easily
and cheaply obtained through a licensing deal or other limited cooperation
agreement.

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redthrowaway
Way too much competition between the two. Apple is not going to sell Android
phones. They won't sell Windows PCs. They don't care about gaming. Honestly,
they'd get great consumer electronics, and that's it. I just can't see this
working.

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bemmu
Since everyone agrees this makes no sense and sony is up +1.43% (pre-market),
does this mean we should go out and short sony stock?

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cookiecaper
The interview with John Sculley indicates that Jobs has always had a great
admiration for "the Sony way" and patterned early Apple processes after
processes Jobs et al observed at the Sony factory.

As we keep that in mind and notice that Apple has converged into the consumer
electronics space, which Sony had locked up back in the days of Walkman, Sony
starts to make sense as a potential Apple interest. Perhaps Jobs feels that
Sony infrastructure that he so admired is still lingering under the dust of
wayward big-corporate management, caked on as Sony grew beyond good managerial
capacity.

Apple is pretty big now and has been able to maintain that. Sony could go far
in Jobs' hands.

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p0ppe
It wouldn't be the first time Apple and Sony have cooperated;
[http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Hide_Under_This_Desk.txt)

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mikecane
Someone wondered why Apple is suddenly favoring Vimeo in its iPad ads. I think
Apple needs a YouTube competitor, but should it be Vimeo? [typo edit]

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ilkhd2
Apple might acquire BoA. Apple might acquire Chrysler. Apple might acquire
Coca-Cola.

and so on.

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ahoyhere
This is just pointless speculation by people who don't understand Apple's MO.
Apple would no more buy Sony that it would buy Compaq.

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geoka9
Who could have thought just a few years ago that Apple would ever be in
position to even consider buying Sony. I'm simply awed...

Here is a line for Apple: "Never underestimate the power of people's vanity."

