I wonder if they’re a publicly traded company. Given the choice between this company trying to compete in the marketplace against Apple versus a guaranteed revenue stream from licensing and royalty fees (and likely a lucrative one at that), I’m pretty sure I know which the shareholders would pick. If this company ends up doing the former and going under, I can just smell the shareholder lawsuit that would ensue.
As an old Perl jockey, you can pry my backticks out of my cold, dead hands.