What would you do with 30 billion dollars? It’s not an abstract question, three companies face the challenge as we speak: Apple, Microsoft, and Cicso each have 30+ billion dollar cash hordes. Given the level of group excitement we go through over tiny-in-comparison purchases such as the $50 purchase of FriendFeed, these mountains of cash are almost too large to comprehend.
Microsoft had some form of solution a few years ago, by giving shareholders 30 of its former 60 billion dollar cash horde. However, given my dim view of Apple, I have a suspicion that something similar is unlikely. Here is a thought, take some of the money, and make the Mac line play nice with the Windows ecosystem.
That you can run Windows on a mac is balderdash, what Mac needs is for it to be so simple for the two genres of computers to interplay, that anyone on a corporate network can be on a Mac, or a PC, and it has no difference. That would unlock a true Pandoras box of growth forr the band.
We would be talking about a full sea change in the computing landscape. What would it cost? Three, maybe five billion over five years. Pocket change. At maximum that is 16.66% of their current cash supply, not even taking into play the money that will pile over the next five.
Apple has too much money to forgo the push to the mainstream. If Mac wants to take a shot at the end of being an also-ran, now is the perfect time. They have the money, what more can you ask for?
