Hey, Jony, here is a dopey idea, a really dopey one. The world needs a Apple + Microsoft merger in order to combat the threat(s) posed by Google and Facebook. While most people have focussed on how loopy the first part of the thesis is, perhaps the more ridiculous bit is the notion that Google and/or Facebook will become that powerful.
Fox Business has posted an interview with Money Map Press analyst Keith Fitz-Gerald in which he states that not only will Microsoft and Apple need to cooperate, but actually could merge in order to combat Google et al.
“I think that Apple and Microsoft may not only have to work together for the next few years,” opines Fitz-Gerald, “but may even see a merger five to 10 years from now because they’re going to have to take on the Google / Android / Facebooks of the world.”
Well, wouldn’t that be an interesting world to live in? And, maybe that’s exactly what will someday come to pass, but both Google and Facebook have more than their share of intractable and perhaps even unsolvable problems.
Moreover, it’s just foolish to underestimate Apple — Palm, Dell, Blackberry and Creative did.
That said, it bears mentioning that Fitz-Gerald arrived at his epiphany after he noticed that his new “smart” TV has “50 different social apps preloaded on it” and he assumed that all of that stuff somehow just works together
“because it’s all plugged into the same stuff now.”
If only all or even a significant chunk of those ’50 different socials apps’ actually worked together. Fundamentally, today’s smart televisions are anything but and Hollywood seems hell bent on preventing Apple from delivering Steve Jobs ‘I finally cracked it’ living room play, perhaps the only salient intelligent TV product.
We will keep waiting for that, and the Apple + Microsoft merger, to happen…
Which do you think will happen?