Apple to team up with Samsung, HTC and Google

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

We’ve been following the competition between Apple and it’s opposition over the last few weeks, but it seems the technology giants are coming together for some good, old strategic business decisions.

Apple and Google were reportedly at it again recently, bidding against each other to get Kodak’s portfolio but according to The Wall Street Journal, it seems the two could be coming together. In fact Apple will also be reportedly teaming up with Samsung, who it is currently in courtroom battles against, as well as HTC. The strategy, apparently, is to get the patents from Kodak in a much cheaper deal. The report says that the group will try to buy the patent portfolio for more than $500 million, which will trump current bids but will still fall below Kodak’s expected price of between $2.2 to $2.6 billion. It seems like a good move by the bunch.

It could finally put an end to the tediously long bidding process that Kodak has undergone, where they have reportedly repeated the bidding a number of times due to contentious bidding. MacRumors reports, “As a result of the volatile negotiations, Kodak has extended bidding several times and has indicated that may end up pulling some or all of its patents from the auction block if pricing is not in line with what if feels it needs to assist with its bankruptcy issues.”

The point to note here is that these competitors still have heads on their shoulders and are not averse to teaming up for business purposes. Imagined if they joined forces completely …