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Apple might acquire Sony?

reuters.com

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Re: Apple might acquire Sony?

#41

Post by megablast »

IdeaHamster wrote: post #28

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, i…

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.

Re: Apple might acquire Sony?

#42

Post by daniel-cussen »

IdeaHamster wrote: post #28

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, i…

They're also competitors. They'd have to get this approved too.

Re: Apple might acquire Sony?

#44

Post by tzury »

IdeaHamster wrote: post #28

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, i…

the recently released Google TV is the main thing though

Re: Apple might acquire Sony?

#46

Post by [deleted] »

awongh wrote: post #29
thought_alarm wrote: post #3

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.

Apple also makes really great hardware, and (most of the time) utterly wretched software- see itunes, iphoto, etc.... Not sure how this would help either company. Apple doesn't need any help getting really great hardware made. If anything, Sony would bring the quality down considerably. (written from my macbookpro in chrome)

[deleted]

Re: Apple might acquire Sony?

#47

Post by hugh3 »

dfox wrote: post #36
schmidp wrote: post #18

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…

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.

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.

Re: Apple might acquire Sony?

#48

Post by 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.

Re: Apple might acquire Sony?

#49

Post by 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.

Re: Apple might acquire Sony?

#50

Post by Tamerlin »

rimantas wrote: post #35

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…

"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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