“U.S. stock market futures tilted higher Monday, helped by a published report suggesting that Walt Disney & Co. may be snapped up by Apple Computer and by a decline in crude-oil futures,” The Associated Press reports. “On Monday, Walt Disney & Co. was trading at $28.17 in Frankfurt from a Friday close of $27.98, as Barron’s suggested that Apple Computer may buy the firm once Steve Jobs becomes Disney’s leading shareholder.”
Full article here.
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Related articles:
Barron’s: Apple Computer could buyout Disney – February 25, 2006
Cringely wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple+Disney+Pixar+others as single huge company in 5 years – January 27, 2006
Steve Jobs’ arrival at the Magic Kingdom could have more thrills than trip to Disneyland – January 27, 2006
Report: Disney buys Pixar for approx. $7 billion, Steve Jobs to become Disney’s largest shareholder – January 23, 2006
Oh, Enderle!!!
OH Nooooooo!!! Disney can not be reformed. It should be put to sleep. Disney has a plot to corrupt the youth of the world and its been working so far.
Well, Steve did want Apple to be more like Sony. He should have Apple crashing and burning in a year or two just like Sony if Apple aquires Disney.
Is Steve that stupid?
but maybe you are
Steve cashes in on Pixar, then reacquires it via Apple.
Sounds like one way to make a lot of money I guess…
The big question is how much they would then revamp the Epcot centre to show an apple vision of the future, a future full of great looking and working technology – bliss.
If he does this, it would be a major media coup d’ete. Think about it, Disney not only owns parks and antiquated character rights, but ABC, ESPN, radio, Buena Vista (movie and music distributor), movie studios, talent, etc. Apple would be the media king, with content and distribution rights. Now, considering that Apple owns the prefered distribution medium, competition will either have to join Apple and offer content through iTunes or be left out of the digital boom. Apple would set the price. Microsoft would not be able to catch up, ever!
I think that Steve will keep this as an option, but it will not be exercised unless Microsoft forms digital competition. Since this is not likely to happen, then I do not believe that Apple will aquire Disney.
no plz no
even with the upside of all such an aquisition might bring… AOL/Time/Warner/Netscape ring any bells?
“AOL/Time/Warner/Netscape ring any bells?”
Two words: Badly Managed
Example of journalists making up news just to make up news for sites such as MDN to pick up to increase web site hits.
Steve Jobs may own X% of Disney. But Apple does not. Jobs traded his stock in Pixar (not Apple) to Disney.
Why didn´t Jobs first have Apple buy Pixar then does this ridiculous idea of Apple buy Disney? There is really nothing at Disney that Apple wants or needs.
Apple needs to make deals with all of the content owners, not just Disney. Why the hell would Jobs make Apple into a competitor of all but one of the content owners? It makes no sense to me.
The flaw in this logic is that Jobs does not own Apple.
Actually, the only flaw in this story are the words.
There are literally a plethora of acquisition options that would make more sense to Apple…
Akamai (increase margins on iTMS, make money from other IT players)
Avid (own audio/video content creation, by owning all of the major players)
EMI Group plc (an affordable music-only media company, actually the only affordable music-only media company – increase margins on iTMS, gain proxy place at the table whenever the RIAA meet up to work out how to hold back the 20th century, gain the ability to put Yoko Ono back in her box)
Harman Industries (this may well not seem so incredible tomorrow)
Sybase (cheaper than Oracle, guarantees the future of at least one commercial-grade RDBMS on Xserve which will become more important once the Intel migration is complete)
Adobe (should I need to explain)
EMC (Fill out the storage array line, sell Xserve RAID on an OEM basis to a wider range of customers who don’t see Apple in this space, acquire Dantz, Legato and VMWare as a by-product)
ADIC (major tape library vendor, plus information lifecycle software – XSan uses a subset of their technology).
Here’s another flaw.
Apple has money, but nowhere near enough to aquire Disney.
So other than the logic, the words and the money, this one’s a flyer.
the other other mark.
Cool post.
My comments
Akamai – May make Apple a better IT contender which it has never been however I don’t think that Steve J. cares about the IT Enterprise market
Avid – DigiDesign, M-Audio and others will come. This one makes perfect sense ant it is in the creative industry which is Apple’s sweet spot.
EMI – Won’t happen. It will alienate other record labels.
Harman – Don’t see what they would bring to Apple. Would they sell any more hardware, software, music services with this. Not likely
Sybase – Sybase is pretty much irrelevant. The DB market is owned by IBM, Oracle, and MS. Too small market share to add any value.
Adobe – Perfect fit for Apple and it is nearby
EMC – No value to Apple here. I doubt Apple’s server market share is big enough to justify such an aquisition.
ADIC – Same as EMC
I will add two of my own
– Any of the large game software companies. Apple has nothing here and users complaint a lot about lack of games on the Mac.
– Acquire Quicken and QuickBooks for the Mac from Intuit – Let Apple build them and maintain compatibility – May not be feasible.
– Native Instruments – Probably the best music software company.
Does anyone have a different opinion.
JEG:
Harman’s value to Apple is almost analogous to Avid’s value.
Harman own the following brands…
Domestic/Consumer AV
Harman-Kardon (duh!) – home AV
JBL – speakers for home/car/marine
Lexicon Consumer – luxury (with a capital L) home audio
Mark Levinson – even more luxurious than Lexicon
Infinity – nice home & auto speakers
Becker – nice in-car entertainment
Audio Access – multi-room audio/video control
Pro
Soundcraft – Music recording mixing desks (largely)
Studer – digital mixing desks/mixing desks for the radio industry/etc.
Lexicon Pro – stuff that makes stuff sound odd/nicer/echoey
AKG – Mics
DigiTech – stuff that makes guitars sound different
DBX – noise reduction
a whole lot I can’t be bothered to write about
Software
QNX – creators of real-time operating systems, much beloved of telematics types.
$7.3 billion, and you get to the point where anything you want to do with audio can be done by paying some part of the Apple empire, whether you’re a consumer or a pro of whatever type (radio/live/recording).
There’s a hell of a lot that can be done with all of that stuff to make it work as part of a wider Apple audio/visual vision: for instance, would people be whining so much about yesterday’s iPod Hi-Fi announcement if Apple had branded it Infinity by Apple or JBL by Apple – probably not, cause it’s hard to argue with the audio credentials of either company.
Likewise, if you wanted to prove that Apple had a complete pro audio vision, you could have AKG by Apple “virtual” mics that simulated the “sound” of a range of microphones, fed into a Macintosh recording environment using either Soundcraft or Studer by Apple desks (all running through high-bandwidth Firewire connections) prior to being effects-routed to Lexicon/Digitech by Apple equipment whilst being monitored on calibrated JBL by Apple monitors and calibrated AKG by Apple headphones, prior to being mastered with DBX by Apple noise reduction.
Just my vision, you don’t have to agree with it.