Posted on Friday, October 08 2010 @ 21:12 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
The NY Times
learned that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen had a secret meeting on how the companies could team up to battle Apple. According to the paper, a possible acquisition of Adobe by Microsoft was among the discussed options:
The meeting, which lasted more than an hour, covered a number of topics, but one of the main thrusts of the discussion was Apple and its control of the mobile phone market and how the two companies could team up in the battle against Apple. A possible acquisition of Adobe by Microsoft were among the options.
...
Another person with knowledge of the talks explained that Microsoft had courted Adobe several years ago. But the deal never moved past informal talks as Microsoft feared that the Justice Department would most likely block the acquisition on antitrust grounds.
This person noted that at the time, Microsoft was the dominant force in technology and Google and Apple were not the giants they are today.
