“As soon as Google CEO Eric Schmidt was named to the board of directors at Apple some mild speculation ensued suggesting that he’d eventually become CEO of Apple. After all, Schmidt, unlike many other high-profile CEOs, is not one to join every board that has an opening,” John C. Dvorak writes for MarketWatch.
“In fact Schmidt may have been brought in as the set-up pitcher for what may finally be the often rumored merger between Apple and Sun Schmidt would quietly be Sun’s inside man on the negotiations although technically he’s be a neutral party since he doesn’t actually work for Sun,” Dvorak writes.
Dvorak writes, “His executive training began at Sun and he is still close to the company and its founders. Being the CEO at Google, a somewhat goofy high-energy creative company, should enable him to handle the Apple side of things.”
“In the past the deals have always fallen apart before they began because (among other reasons) the combined companies would not have an acceptable CEO. Neither Scott McNealy nor Steve Jobs nor John Sculley nor Mike Spindler (not to mention Gil Amelio) seemed capable of handling a combined operation,” Dvorak writes. “With today’s two CEO’s, Steve Jobs at Apple and Jonathan Schwartz at Sun, this continues to be true. But with Eric Schmidt in the game as a middleman it’s quite possible that he could take the reins of such a combined operation and make it work.”
“Apple is looking to make a splash in the server market to solidify its position there, but it does not have the credibility of a Dell, HP, IBM or a Sun despite the quality of its offerings, and it would love to grow that very profitable side of the business,” Dvorak writes. “And the big change in Steve Jobs has to be noted. In doing the deal to merge Pixar with Disney, thus making him the top Disney shareholder, Jobs may have gotten the M&A itch. Could he do a big deal again? Is he now thinking he could become a dealmaker?”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Interesting speculation (from Dvorak, no less) precipitated by Schmidt’s arrival on Apple’s board. One question springs immediately to mind: Is Apple really “looking to make a splash in the server market?” Sure, Apple offers excellent servers, but they haven’t been very aggressive to date? What would Sun really add to Apple? Still, according to Bill Joy, Sun and Apple almost merged three times in the past. What do you think, is it really “Snapple Time” this time?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Video: Dvorak admits to baiting Apple Mac users for hits – June 10, 2006
Google CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt joins Apple’s Board of Directors – August 29, 2006
Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard gets Sun’s DTrace – August 08, 2006
Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy steps down – April 25, 2006
Snapple? Bill Joy: Sun and Apple almost merged three times – January 12, 2006
Enderle: maybe it’s time for Apple and Sun to merge – August 10, 2004
LinuxInsider: Apple ‘needs to hop into bed with Sun’ – July 08, 2004
Microsoft and Sun enter into ‘unholy alliance’ aginst IBM, Linux – April 02, 2004
Internet Week: Sun’s McNealy should ‘buy a Mac or better yet, buy Apple’ – September 22, 2003
Sun and Apple, Apple and Sun; could it ever happen? – August 07, 2003
Sun VP of Software: practically every Sun employee owns an Apple desktop at home – August 06, 2003
Is a response other than “No.” required to this article?
If Apple wants to make a splash in the server space, they need to take a hard look at Mac OS X server and correct it’s problems. Then take a hard look at Linux and improve it’s best features, correct it’s failings, offer more security and ease of use, then give OS X Server away for free with a purchase of a new X-Server that will be cheaper priced than anyone else.
IT can buy X-Server based on a cheaper hardware price and install what they want, or they can use the free OS X Server.
This would cripple Microsoft, Dell and Linux.
Linux may be free, but it suffers from inadequate service and support.
And please remember to tip your server.
He’s into the crack stash again…
If anything, CEO of Google joining Apple Board for same reason as CEO of Gentech joining Apple Board. I believe Apple would like to expand server market and would be nice to have a high profile company such as Google starting to use Apple Xserve. Hopefully it will have similar effect as when Gentech started to us3 Apple computers for their R&D activity. Google seem to be using Linux and probably running on intel X86, so it make sense for them to start using new Xserve. I think with in few month Google will start claiming they use Xserves (but don’t expect them to run OSX).
As for Apple and Sun merging… Why would Apple want to and why would Sun want to merge…
The best comment on Dvorak ever:
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/357.html
A smooth merger would be Supple.
What is Dvorak smoking? This guy is close to Sun? Even though Google has made a business of using cheap PCs for their servers?
Please!
You can to better than that, monkeybrain…
I don’t see what’s in it for Apple to buy Sun. Sun is losing money, going down, and offers little benefit in any other terms.
Adobe which has a market cap in the ballpark of Sun, has almost $2B in cash, is consistently showing a profit, would offer a lot of benefit if bought/merged with Apple.
XServer and OS X Server
To the guy thinking the Server version should be free with each XServer, it is……already
from apples website
Unlimited-client Mac OS X Server
Your Xserve ships with Mac OS X Server 10.4, the world’s most advanced server operating system that works with an unlimited number of Mac, Windows, Linux, and Unix clients
Dvorak is completely unable to assess Apple. Why does he continue to bother. He is disconnected from what is actual and what is fiction.
Here’s a video of Dvorak explaining how he manipulates Mac users to boost his hits and hence ad revenue.
http://www.scripting.com/2006/06/13.html#videoAtVloggercon
do not click on the article and give dvorak money hes a liar, and a scumbag.
Well he maybe wrong on the Sun merger but it’s a fact that
1) Apple sits on a pile of cash
2) Jobs has handed over parts of the keynote to his staff and is not going to be there in Paris. A sign of a stepdown for Jobs?
3) Google and Apple would be very complementary and world dominating
A merger between Apple and Google which have about the same marketcap if I’m not mistaken would be a real threat to Microsoft.
Thank you MDN for giving us a big chunk of his article so we dont have to click on it and give him any hit counts.
Keep that up!
MDN word: DEATH!
Death to Dvorak’s column!
“A merger between Apple and Google which have about the same marketcap if I’m not mistaken would be a real threat to Microsoft”
You are mistaken as to market caps, and it would make about as much sense for Google to merge with Apple as Time Warner for Time Warner to merge with AOL.