PBS | I, Cringely . April 27, 2006 - Killer Apps: "For Apple's Windows Strategy to Work, It Must Replace Microsoft Office and Buy Adobe Systems"
I don't often strongly disagree with Cringely's thought-provoking and insightful essays, but I think he's on Planet 10 with this one.
Where to start?... E.g., ADBE market cap at the moment: $23.6B (approx. half of AAPL's current mkt cap). I doubt even a classic Steve Jobs reality distortion field could make an acquisition case for that, despite Apple's current stock market magic, especially since Adobe happens to be a huge Windows ISV (the only mainstream Windows desktop ISV that really matters these days, other than Microsoft itself) and Apple's OS market share is still relatively tiny (albeit stronger for creative types who buy a lot of Adobe products than in the market overall).
Microsoft might be a big supporter of an AAPL/ADBE merger, since it'd be very useful for selling Microsoft's new Expression line of designer/creative tools; I'm sure a lot of Adobe Windows product customers would be nervous if Apple acquired Adobe...
In any case: I agree that Apple needs to do something aggressive/innovative/etc. to continue rebuilding Mac momentum at a sustainably meaningful level, but dropping $25B+ on ADBE (I have no idea what an acquisition premium would be like) doesn't seem like a great option to me.
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