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Pie in the sky rumours, but I will say one thing: If Apple did buy Sony, the PS4 would have an awesome controller.
The first thing that came to mind was the hockey puck.
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.
They also make nice iPod competitors.
Of course, there's no reason why Apple would buy such a huge company. They prefer to buy small tech companies that they can absorb without losing their design and management DNA. Not big competitors. Not $33 billion companies with 163,000 employees.
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.
1) Prevent competition on the Mac app store 2) Proven distribution/scalability 3) Instant community that can bolster Ping
Edited. Brainfart, put "Sony" there
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I rather doubt the rumours though. There would be many business units that would have to be spun out or shut down. (Sony Ericsson, Sony eReaders, BluRay, etc)
I like Sony. I like Apple. I'd like to see Sony find its way again and start competing hard and innovating.