Apple who have $40 Billion in cash reserves is close to buying Twitter according to industry speculation in Silicon Valley, the home of Apple.
Local web site SiliconValley.Com claim that earlier this year Google tried to buy Apple but due to potential issues with regulatory bodies in the USA and the fact that they were rebuffed by Twitter CEO Evan Williams, the search engine company backed away from the deal. Now it appears that Apple are close to cutting a deal.
A board member of Apple is Eric Schmidt, the Chairman of Google.
In recent weeks Twitter has exploded to nearly 30 million users and is growing at 40% a week.
“Apple is in late stage negotiations to buy Twitter and is hoping to announce it at WWDC in June,” said a reliable source this week.
The rumoured purchase price of $700 million in cash is seen as petty cash for Apple who delivered $A1.7 billion in profits in the last quarter.
Originally, Twitter executives said that they did not want to sell at any price however the lure of a $700M deal with Apple is said to have changed their thinking said a Wall Street Analyst.
There is also speculation that if Apple purchased Twitter, the whole concept of Twitter as an independent Internet operation would disappear and that users would desert the service in droves.
