Rumour: Apple To Buy Twitter

Rumours are circulating that Apple is close to a deal to acquire social networking site Twitter for $700M in an all cash deal according to Gawker.com.

Gawker says that the deal could be announced as soon as June 8 just in time for the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference launches here in San Jose.

My thoughts are that this is likely not to happen. Apple is in the business of creating great hardware, not Twittering social communities. Just look at the track history of Apple itself and ask why in the world would they go out and purchase Twitter. Why would they deviate from that at all.

And why would Apple buy Twitter just in time for the Apple Developer Conference. Twitter already is an open platform. What would there be for Apple to showcase to developers that they don't know already from the Twitter API.

If they do purchase Twitter, I'd imagine its to protect itself from something they may already be developing. It could pertain to some sort of search engine with the strategy of drawing existing iPhone users over to use it. That could possible steal some thunder from Google but that would take a monumental marketing effort to lure cell phone users over to iPhones - definitely not at the existing $199/phone + $99/month in AT&T service fees.

Apple has $25B in cash according to the December 2008 SEC filing. $700M is quite a bit to toss into the fire on Twitter that has shown to derive little, if any revenue, let alone real valuation of what a Twitter user is worth. I'd be very surprised if this rumour turns out to be true.