There have been a lot of rumours about  how Apple, with its mighty war chest is planning to buy Twitter . The latest rumours include a price tag of $700m which is no small amount of beans. But if you put the money element to one side (they can clearly afford it) I don’t see why Apple would want to buy Twitter.

I offer 5 reasons why I think Apple won’t buy Twitter.

1. Twitter is not in their business model. They make hardware and software and they make damn good devices. Buying a chip maker is a logical business move – buying a micro blogging platform with no visible business model is not. Don’t forget Apple is a public company so they can’t just buy on a whim.

2. Apple are not in the portal space. If Apple owned its own search engine or portal (I don’t consider Mobile Me to be there yet) then adding on Twitter would be a logical extension. Apple has huge brand love so a portal would be a good move but would need to be in place before a big leap to tweeting. (I have always thought they should buy Ask Jeeves and make something of it…)

3. Twitter still does not have a business model – how can a public company possibly judge the real value of twitter over the hype when there is no real projection of income (that we as the public have seen). There is a real danger of paying way too much for the business – Google continues to be dogged about the YouTube value.

4. Apple does not have a history of such purchases and does not need Twitter to grow its core business. Microsoft, on the other hand does. I would suggest Microsoft has deeper pockets than Apple.

5. Apple is a very strong brand and takes a lot of effort to maintain the brand experience. This is why the machines are sealed, this is why all apps have to be approved. Anything that works with Apple or represents Apple must enhance the brand. Buying Twitter which is a collection of people saying whatever they want, has the potential to be a massive headache to Apple should things go wrong or innapropriate content appear.

So I just don’t see it. Apple do have a habit of suprising us all, but I would suggest their mooted tablet development would have more potential ‘wow’ factor and logical business extension than buying Twitter.

What do you think?

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