Jessica Lessin, in her weekly column for The Information (paywall):
As Google and Facebook vie to buy fast-growing apps for billions,
I have one big question: Where is everyone else?
If Google and Facebook believe WhatsApp and messaging are
strategic enough to pay $19 billion or more to own them, what are
Apple, Amazon, Samsung or Twitter thinking? (Let’s ignore the fact
that WhatsApp may not have wanted to sell to them and think of it
from the point of view of how hard these companies should have
tried to buy the startup.)
Perhaps they see themselves as being in different businesses. Or
they think Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg are a little bit nuts.
Time will tell on the second, but I think the verdict on the first
is already clear.
I’m sure Apple never even considered acquiring WhatsApp. For one thing, Apple has never done a mega-billion-dollar acquisition. They tend to buy small companies. But for another, what could WhatsApp offer Apple? They already have iMessage...