re: Apple reportedly considering buying Beats for $3.2 billion

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Apple is said to be paying $3.2 billion dollars for the company, a sum that dwarfs the $404 million Apple spent to acquire NeXT in 1996, its largest purchase to date. As of its last earnings call, Apple had some $150 billion in cash on hand, plenty to cover the large acquisition.

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In times like these when tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook seemingly drop a couple of billion dollars every other month to acquire yet another start-up, it is indeed surprising that Apple hasn't bought a company that costed them more than $400 million. If anybody has the cash lying around for M&As, it is them.

On a side note, Apple is already investing heavily in another area where no one else seems to be making any large scale investments at present - Sapphire Glass. This article talks about how Apple could be the sole beneficiary of this new era of sapphire manufacturing - Supply chained: Apple's sapphire production will be hard to copy. I think eventually every iPhone, iPad (and possibly Mac) screen will be made from Sapphire.