Who Apple Should Buy With Their $7 Billion

What do Adobe, TiVo, Sun, Novell, Universal, Palm, Pixar and Real all have in common? Think hard, what could be the connecting thread? Give up? Well, in searching the internet it seems that a good number of people seem to think that Apple should buy one or more of these companies. Think it’s crazy? Well, Apple has $7 billion dollars in cash and $67 billion in market cap, so if Steve wanted to go on a shopping spree here is what it would cost him:

Universal Music - Market Cap $36 billion
Buying this one would seriously deplete Apple’s reserves leaving it vulnerable to market downturns
Why - Gives them a huge foothold in the more conventional entertainment market
Pro - Would allow Apple to really begin forcing the music industry into the digital age (and make a lot of money doing it)
Con - Very costly, might not be worth it now that the ITMS is doing so well

Adobe - Market Cap $20 billion
Between their on-hand cash and available stock buying Adobe (which now includes Macromedia) would be quite possible.
Why - Give Apple more of a force on your average consumer’s desktop
Pro - Overnight becomes the dominant player in Media creation software
Con - Certain apps would have to be killed since they would become redundant (Premiere anyone?)

Sun - Market Cap $16 billion
Not quite as expensive as Adobe but still a nice chunk of change
Why - Sun almost bought Apple once and the two companies almost merged twice. The industry has moved the two farther away now than they once were but the possibility of another meeting is still tantalizing.
Pro - If Apple wants to make a push into the business world, buying Sun might be a good start
Con - Sun isn’t anywhere near the digital living room Jobs seems to be heading towards

Pixar - Market Cap $7 billion
Could be snapped up with only the cash on hand
Why - Jobs folds Pixar into Apple, makes himself even richer and forces the heads of Mac zealots everywhere to explode. Governing both under one roof officially would announce to the world that Apple is no longer a hardware company but instead a content company
Pro - Download the Incredibles on the ITMS, need I say more?
Con - Can you say “Government regulation”? Bet you can

Novell - Market Cap $3.5 billion
If they wanted it then they could easily make it happen
Why - Would signal a push towards the business sector
Pro - Could merge SuSE Linux with OS X to form the basis of OS XI or use this acquisition to better position themselves for enterprise class products
Con - If this isn’t the direction Apple is moving then buying Novell just means more dead weight to be discarded later

Palm - Market Cap $1.8 billion
At barely $2 billion buying Palm wouldn’t tap into their reserves very much at all
Why - The Palm PDA merges with the iPod which then morphs into a phone which then transforms into a semi named Optimus Prime
Pro - Apple releases the super-duper iPod capable of doing everything, everyone else surrenders
Con - PDAs have been on the downturn these past few years due to device convergence

Real - Market Cap $1.4 billion
At $1.4 billion and falling Apple could get this one for a song in a year or two, right before they file for Chapter 11
Why - To finally shut Rob Glasser up for good, make Real customers Quicktime customers and further boost Quicktime as a standard over Windows Media player
Pro - Glasser can finally buy an iPod without shame, and Apple forces Google’s new movie service to use Quicktime
Con - All in all this might be more trouble than its worth because in a few years (months?) Real might not matter anymore

TiVo - Market Cap $465 million
Drop in the bucket, Apple could easily make it happen if they felt the need
Why - To immediately release a DVR
Pro - Would allow Apple to get a foot in the door with the lucrative Cable market
Con - The Mac Mini could do everything this does in a year or so

There are some of my suggestions for what Apple could do with its current cash horde. Have other suggestions? Post them below.