Sun deal goes awry

Today negotiations for a reported buyout of Sun Microsystems by IBM was finally declared all but dead. This isn't entirely surprising as such a deal probably would never have passed through the net of antitrust regulators, either in the U.S. or the E.U. Even from a business perspective it did not make complete sense for IBM to pay so much money for a competitor that's dying out anyways and does not offer much in terms of I.P. that IBM does not already have in some form or other.

I have been reading all over the business and IT press today how Sun might still be acquired by Cisco or even HP, who have already rejected such a deal. I am more than a bit skeptical in both cases.

However, nowhere yet have I seen mention of a potential deal with Apple. This is quite strange, actually, as both companies are Silicon-valley based and they are both technology-driven. Moreover, Apple with its $24bn in cash could easily afford to buy Sun, and could make very good use of Sun's high-end Sparc chips in its Mac Pro line of workstations... not to mention a great way to further penetrate the enterprise server market... Steve, wake up, man!