Francis Irving sent through a link this morning to an article in the Register that asks the question Why didn't Apple use its cash to buy or build a bank?. After all, as Tomi Ahonen has been saying for at least 10 years, isn't Mobile the future of money.

Now while others have pondered why didn't they just buy a Telco or two. And both are valid strategies worthy of exploration. The truth is both pose significant risks for Apple.

After all, with the GFC still on the collective global nose would you really want to invest all that cash in a high risk business like Banking? Or, a even a collection of dumb pipes from an under performing Telco or two? Plus. Just as Google has found with its Andoid OS - Buy a handset manufacturer and you upset the other Handset Manufacturers using your mOS. So too with the Telcos. Buy a Telco and you upset the rest of the Telcos. Which is not really the iPhone strategy you are perhaps looking to invest in.

So although upon reflection. After a glass of red over lunch. The thought of a new, ground breaking generation of Black Turtle Neck Bankers and Uber Cool Telcos in Sneakers and Jeans, much loved by the customers and terrorising their under performing competitors, holds some whimsical appeal. In the real world the strategic fit just wasn't there. Both are very high risk strategies that would struggle to deliver enough ROI to cover the downside risk.

No. I must admit that if I was wearing the Black Turtle Neck Sweater I would have been taking a very close look at acquiring on of the credit card companies.

Visa @ $79 Billion or Amex @ $68.5 Billion or MasterCard @ $53 Billion. Any one of these would have represented the "killer" MOBCON strategy for Apple.

Why? Simply because the credit card companies don't have the risk exposure of the Banks and they dwarf the mobile payments industry. Plus credit cards are a significantly bigger business than the global telecoms industry.

Once I had acquired a credit card company I would then implement the global MNVO Banking strategy I outline a couple of years back in Will we Point, Click, Search, Scan, Swipe, See, Sign or Touch the Future?.

Then it would be game over for the competition and the world would be left in no doubt who owns the transaction and exchange of our mobile lives.

So why I am I not surprised that Apple didn't take the plunge and changed the game? Why I am I not surprised they didn't become the GE of the information era? The first MOBCON corporation? Why am I not surprised they just handed the money back to their shareholders?

Apple may be the prince of techno cool but the simple reality is they are, broadly speaking, just another one of Silicon Valley's One Trick Ponies. Google has search advertising. Microsoft has Windows. Oracle has the database.

Apple has the blank slate. In all its abundant shapes and sizes. For over 30 years Apple has been designing and profiting from the same product. The only thing that has changed is the technology. It is faster, smaller, more colourful and sounds better. But the Mac is the DNA of the iPhone as the iPhone shares the DNA of an iPod or an iPad. they are all blank slates. A collection of electronic canvases that allows the consumer to project their own personality and passion into the machine.

Apple the credit card company? Apple the bank? Apple the telco? Now that would take more than a glass of red wine or two to imagine with any clarity. It simply isn't in their DNA.

One only has to take a look at Apple's MobCon Radar from a couple of years ago to know that the formula for success was always going to be focus. Not diversification.

This then raises the question what's next for the world's most innovative company? Well I guess there is always resizable or stackable and rackable blank slates. But after that? Who knows. I guess it all depends how long we feel the need to carry an electronic window or mirror in our hand bag or pocket.

But then perhaps that is the reason why the world's most innovative company handed the cash back. maybe they have simply run out of innovative, game changing ideas.

Till next time...

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