> There's also an ongoing lawsuit to consider -- as Ars Technica documented in 2013, Apple was forced to majorly change how FaceTime works to avoid infringing on the patents of a company called VirnetX. Instead of letting phones communicate directly with each other, Apple added "relay servers" to help the phones connect.

> Presumably, someone would have to pay for those servers, and/or figure out a way for them to talk to Google or Microsoft or other third-party servers if FaceTime were going to be truly open.

VirnetX is a listed company. Apple could simply buy them out from under the Board's feet and throw them in the dumpster and not even notice the cost.

Market cap: 202M

Apple makes that in what? Ten minutes? ;-)

> Apple makes that in what? Ten minutes? ;-)

About a day and a half. (that's based on 2017's $48 billion net income)

So Apple almost certainly could afford to buy the company, but they'd need a business case for doing so, weighing that option against all the OTHER nice things they might want to spend $200 million on.

Apple also has something like 250 billion in liquid assets.

I don't see why the patents made an open standard impossible, or even relatively difficult.

The patents covered parts of the technology which Apple planned to make an open standard. This would have left the standard patent-encumbered, making it hazardous to implement.