Apple's Shopping List?

With Apple's 4th quarter financial earnings report being released, Steve Jobs took some time to talk about his companies $51 billion in cash as well as trash his rivals namely RIM and Android. However, this $51 billion in cash is what is the interesting point, as Jobs has said that they "strongly believe that one or more very strategic opportunities may come along that we’re in unique opportunity to take advantage of because of our cash". This is tantamount to Apple looking to acquire some company or set of companies.

One of the big rumors that is gaining steam has been an acquisition of Facebook by Apple. I firmly believe this is the exact opposite move that Apple plans to make. Although it could be considered a good move to help integrate everyone with their Ping service, compete with Google, and would make a great integration with the Facebook Chat and iChat/Facetime. In addition, Facebook is one service that Apple does not have any hope of competing against. However, there are several huge reasons why this move would not work out at all.

Most importantly and primarily is the way that Facebook makes revenue. They sell credits for their immensely popular games like Farmville and Mafia Wars and make a substantial amount of their profits from this. The big thing about these games is that a large percentage of them run on the dreaded Flash platform that Steve Jobs has long railed against. By buying Facebook, this would be a huge backtracking from his very public stance that Flash is a dead technology. Also the proposed culture clash between Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs would make for some very interesting board meetings. The outspoken and counterculture Zuckerberg would not seem to fit in place with the orderly culture of Apple.

If this rumor is gaining steam due to the relation that Facebook would help augment the Ping service, there are two huge shortcomings to this idea. One is the fact that Ping has only been out for less than three months and still is gaining its legs, so it seems too early for Apple to throwing money at it to try to fix it. It should run its time for at least a year so Apple can see what is working and if they need to continue to push it. The second reason why a Facebook for the sake of improving Ping would be foolish is Ping is not the cash cow nor even a major part of Apple's income; like that of the iPod line and iTunes. Ping seems like a novel idea that might gain a niche following but buying Facebok just to make it the king of music networks seems foolish. Besides there's always Myspace for that.