Tales of an Apple/Sun merger

The Register has a story about past history between Sun and Apple. According to the story, Sun made several attempts to buy Apple. McNealy also shares his opinion on the fate of the iPod:

"There's a pendulum thing where stuff is on the client side and then goes back into the network where it belongs," McNealy said. "The answering machine put voicemail by the desk, and then it went back into the network."

"Your iPod is like your home answering machine," McNealy said. "I guarantee you it will be hard to sell an iPod five or seven years from now when every cell phone can access your entire music library wherever you are."

McNealy is underestimating Apple and Jobs. Apple will have its own line of phone-enabled media devices in the next few years.

Update: Stephen Shankland has the full story, lots of details...