Everyone loves to make these arguments of the form 'Apple should buy x, because Apple has the ability to improve x in the following ways.' Nowhere does he address why it would be in Apple's interest to buy Yahoo.<p>Apple is a hardware company; it makes money by producing objects and selling them to people. Yahoo is an advertising company; it makes money by producing content and selling ads next to it. If you want to argue that Apple should buy Yahoo, you have to explain why Apple should take a major stake in an area way outside its core competence.
Ewwwww. Remember Jobs' comment about Microsoft having no taste?<p>Yahoo! has two faces: the open source advocating, hacking, library publishing, data sharing side we love, and the marketing side, which has a lot of engineering behind it, and gives us the Yahoo! look and feel complete with degree programs, male enhancement, and refinancing offers. Talk about a lack of taste.<p>Cleaning up Yahoo! to Apple's standards would not be easy.<p>It would be like trying to cut down a Winnebago to make a BMW. Possible maybe, but probably not worth the trouble.
Apple consolidating with Yahoo would create a formidable force, but it's likely not a relationship that is likely to work. The two companies have different styles, they have different markets, they have very little in common.<p>A merger makes sense when the two companies together will function better than if they were separate - Apple can bring little to Yahoo and Yahoo can bring little to Apple. These are public companies, if you want a piece of them, go buy shares in both of equal amount.<p>If you merge two car companies, a lot can be done - designers can be exchanged, common engine platforms can be developed and so on. There is a clear advantage to such a merger.<p>But Apple and Yahoo? What will an OS developer do with a bunch of YUI developers? How will Apples experience designing a music player help with Yahoo Mail?<p>Just because companies are known brands does not mean they should marry. Stop treating companies like they were Hollywood stars and speculating about who is in bed with whom, and who should finally hook up because they would soo fit with each other.
One of the hallmarks of Apple, especially since Jobs' return, is that they focus and specialise, and enter new markets very deliberately with a single product (which at most gets a few variations). So I don't see them making an acquisition that would at a stroke have their fingers in so many pies.
printf ("%s Should Buy Yahoo", query("SELECT NAME FROM COMPANY WHERE INDUSTRY LIKE 'COMPUTER' AND MARKET_CAP > 10e9"));<p>Really, just go down the list and you'll see just as much* justification for any other company to buy them.<p>* Where "much" means "little"
Apple seems to have its own timeline and agenda. If I were a betting man, I'd wager Apple would rather take an open source project, fold it into a hardware offering and drive the software's direction. Each piece gets them closer to shifting focus.<p>I don't see how purchasing Yahoo! fits into this pattern. They are a large search company with a number of web apps. This is in diametric opposition Apple's strategy. Why would they all of a sudden make a splash in the search game by purchasing an expensive company?<p>If they were to do search, it seems to me they would purchase a digital ink company, a yellow pages company, make yellow digital ink and call it a revolution. And we would love them for it.
Apple and Google are already very cosy. If Apple bought Yahoo that would probably raise a few antitrust issues for Google. Unless it's supposed to be a way to workaround that.