[serpicolugnut]

I think Apple should make two purchases, in seperate fields...

First off, they should buy Roxio. Roxio will be entering the online music biz with a revamped Napster, and will probably be Apple's biggest competition (outside of MS, whenever they decide to jump in to the fray). In a Roxio purchase, Apple would also get the excellent Toast software, which sells quite well on the Mac. Also, they get a whole crop of Windows programs for burning, video and dvd creation. Roxio has the lions share of the CD burning software market on the PC, and Apple could effectively control that. Apple would also get some great engineers who could assist in bringing iTunes to Windows...

The other purchase I believe Apple should make is in Silicon Graphics. SG would get Apple in the door in some high end creative markets that Apple has been lusting after for some time. Merging together the best parts of both Apple and SG would produce a 3D powerhouse company. Apple would also get Alias Wavefront's Maya out of this deal, which would be huge. With Maya, FCP, and Shake, Apple would have a pro digital content creation lineup second to none...

Of course, it's all just wishful thinking....