Forget Google & Microsoft! Aim for Apple!
Written on 8th December 2007
3 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
My guess is that 95% of all current businessplan mention Google at the first logical exit partner. It used to be Yahoo and Microsoft before that. But it seems that there is another company that is swimming in cash and looking for innovative companies to aqcuire: Apple.
With a cash reserve of up to $15 billion (Source: Fortune) they sure can afford to spend a couple of billion on your business. And you might say that they are a hardware company and are probably not interested in your little Web2.0 scheme. But Apple is so much bigger than just hardware these days. They are a hardware, software, telephony, music, ecommerce and multimedia company. One thing they aren’t yet is a search or social network company. But why not change that? iTunes was a Mac only product at first but then turned ‘PC’ after a year or so and is THE music player on Windows now.
What if Apple would acquire Facebook? They can afford it, in cash, and would suddenly become THE online social network player with the hippest offline social meeting places in the world: The Apple store.
Yep, it is time for Apple to start making some acquisitions in the Internet world. What will YOU sell to Apple in 2008?




The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info
By Patrick de Laive on Dec 8, 2007
Whith the iPhone Apple could become the mobile phone platform for all kinds of cool mobile software (IF they open it up). So I expect that their acquisition will be in the mobile sphere.
Reply
By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Dec 8, 2007
But Apple is good in writing software so I wouldn’t assume they buy application builders. They haven’t done that much in the past with software developers either. I would be my money on Search or Social…
Reply
By Steven van Wel on Dec 9, 2007
We all know the loyalty of Apple customers/users in iTunes and now the iPhone, is huge. Just what a social platform (or any other business for that matter) needs. A small steps has already been initiated, besided going ‘PC’, the Starbucks deal. Apple’s got it all; music, movies, mobile, soft-/hardware. I do not believe that Mr. Jobs is willing to buy ‘Social’. Wouldn’t it be great? My answer is YES!
Reply