First, I have not read the article.<p>Second, if GE had bought Apple in 1996, that GE would still be our Beloved GE of now (in this timeline), but that Apple would have withered on the vine. Look at what GE did with another aquistion, NBC. Nothing. Maybe even messed NBC up a little bit.<p>Maybe all you Apple Fanboys would be fawning over NeXT or BeOS or some other status symbol. But you wouldn't be thinking that GE subsidiary Apple was so darn cool.