Snappade upp en lite kitlande tanke som går ut på att Time Warner gärna vill bli av med AOL och att Apple mycket väl kan vara på väg att bli ny ägare av AOL. Tål att fundera över:
What if Apple Buys AOL?
The deals around today's announcement of the iTunes Music Store for Windows point the way to an interesting merger. Apple would suddenly be competitive with MSN, and Time Warner could satisfy its strange urge to stop owning one of the most valuable Internet properties on Earth.
Apple, Audible.com, and AOL
Oct 16, 03 | 12:26 pm MDT — By Amy Percival at Spymac.com
As part of a massive music-related announcement today, Steve Jobs stated that Apple has reached a multi-year exclusive deal with Audible.com to distribute more than 5000 audible books online through the iTunes Music Store. Another deal, with AOL, allows AOL's American users to use their AOL ID at the iTMS instead of a credit card number. The iTunes Music Store will also feature prominently on AOL's music site, with an iTMS purchase button beside almost every song.
Those of us that remember Apple eWorld are immediately getting gooseflesh at such a thought, but it makes some sense. As Google's $16B valuation (mis-reported in this story to my knowledge) has been making the rumor circuit in Silicon Valley, it is noted that AOL's imputed value is approximately $8 billion. Apple's market capitalization is $8.4B plus they have $4.5B in cash. That deal is doable, particularly with how desperate a seller Time Warner is. Does Goldman Sachs have enough i-bankers still on the payroll to get the transaction done?
