Industry watchers deny Apple-Twitter deal talk
06 May 2009
To a long list suitors that have at various points of time been interested in acquiring Twitter according to the grapevine a new name has be added - Apple. According to internet hype Apple is in talks to buy the micro-blogging site Twitter for $700 million though industry watchers are now seemingly working overtime to quash the rumours.
Both Apple and Twitter have declined to comment on the stories, which emanate from a single source 'close to Apple.'
Similar stories have been put up on several sites stating that Apple is in 'late-stage' talks to buy Twitter with a $700 million acquisition announcement at WWDC next month.
The posts credit a senior Apple insider claiming that Apple and Twitter were in serious negotiations with the goal of unveiling the deal by 8 June Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference launches in San Jose.
The rumours about Twitter and Apple two of the most talked about entities have started spreading like wildfire, but industry observers have been quick to move in to quash them.
A technology editor in a blog posting said that if anyone suggested to the reader that Apple was about to buy Twitter, the reader should counter with saying that they are not and that he had read it in the Guardian.
Another writer discounting the rumors said that Google and Microsoft would have been ahead of Apple if Twitter were really up for grabs.
The writer points out that an Apple-Twitter link-up was a strange fit as Apple generally was known to acquire companies that fit into its strategy to sell hardware and companies that develop software for its devices like its acquisition of FingerWorks for its touch screen technology.
The writer adds that it was difficult to figure out how Twitter's messaging technology would help Apple given the fact that it currently does not make any money.
However, given the fact that of iPhone, Twitter apps purchased from Apple App Store, Apple was already making money out of Twitter.
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read updates by other users known as "tweets". Tweets are posts comprising up to 140 characters that are displayed on user's profile pages and delivered to followers (users subscribed to tweets).
The service is offered free on the internet and has come to be known as the 'SMS of the internet'. The site, via its application programming interfaces provides messaging functionality for other desktop and web-based applications to receive and send short text messages.
