Debating a Fantasy Merger

Computerworld - The technology market remains in a deep swoon, which is a problem for pundits. We need news, doggone it, and trying to figure out what Web services are only gives us headaches. So let's imagine something more amusing. A merger of Sun Microsystems and Apple Computer, perhaps?
I grant that this would-be rumor isn't making the rounds, because as far as I know the companies aren't considering it. For every reason it might make sense, you can come up with at least one why it doesn't. So let's play what-if, and list a few whys and why-nots on each side. Please send your whys and why-nots, too, and I'll post the best ones on my Web page.
First, here are some whys:
• The product line is more complementary than you might think at first glance. Sun is the foremost Unix server supplier on the planet and has been making tentative moves down toward the desktop. Apple, now the leading supplier of desktop Unix with the release of Mac OS X, has been making moves into the low-end server space with its rack-mounted Xserve models.
• Sun has some software that Apple needs, too. In particular, the StarOffice suite has become a reasonable Microsoft Office alternative everywhere but on the Mac, where Sun unaccountably has dropped the ball. The OpenOffice version of the application isn't ready for prime time and may never reach the level it should.
• Sun's foray into desktop computing is tentative at best, relying on a Linux strategy. With OS X as the core of the desktop systems, the SunApple (AppleSun?) could offer an easy-to-use, easy-to-manage, soup-to-nuts line to businesses. A smarter blending of Java and Apple's user-centric notions would also be valuable in the emerging world of other intelligent devices, such as handhelds and powerful mobile phones.
• Assuming Sun would buy Apple (appropriate, based on current market capitalizations), Steve Jobs could go back to running Pixar full-time, which looks like more fun, anyway.
• A recent Merrill Lynch research report warned that Sun was in danger of becoming the Apple of the server market. I prefer to read that as an endorsement. And, of course, anything from a Wall Street analyst must be true, right?
Now here's why this merger would be nutty:
• Apple is still a small part of the computer business, but it has an increasingly coherent product line. It's making steady headway in at least one place that counts: the digerati crowd that I see more and more carryin