At the moment (May 2011) Apple has approximately $77 billion in the bank. You never hear the company speculate publicly about what it might or might not do in terms of acquisitions with all that cash, which is probably no surprise. That doesn’t keep industry watchers from making prognostications though,and here’s one of the better ones I’ve heard recently.
It’s an interesting read postulating that the best thing Apple could do with this cash cache would be an end run around ATT, Verizon, et al. and spend it on a data-only carrier. Matthew Panzarino examines whether buying an existing carrier or creating a new one would be the best way forward for “AppleNet”. Pure conjecture, but thought-provoking.