Over the weekend, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg met for some dinner, and smart money would rest on the bet that they were trying to work out some sort of deal where Facebook and Ping come together at last.
But could Apple’s interest be far more bold than merely ironing out some differences? Peter Kafka over at All Things D certainly thinks so: he speculates that Apple may want to buy Facebook outright with its $51 billion in cash reserves.
Here’s Kafka’s reasoning. Asked by Jobs what Apple intends to do with all of its cash, Jobs responded: “We firmly believe that one or more unique strategic opportunities will present itself to us, and we’ll be in a position to take advantage of it.” As Kafka sees it, Facebook’s a good bet for such an acquisition.