Apple is sitting on a huge cash-pile that it may use to make a series of acquisitions following the death of its legendary co-founder Steve Jobs last week, say analysts.

An Apple spokesman, speaking to Bloomberg, reiterated the company’s longstanding position that it has a good track record of managing cash and is keeping it available for potential “strategic opportunities.” If deals aren’t forthcoming, the report notes that the firm could face renewed calls to fund a dividend or stock buyback.

As CEO, Jobs (pictured) was reluctant to expand via M&A with the firm spending just US$1 billion on deals over the last decade, a fraction of that spent by rivals such as Microsoft over the same period. But experts believe that Apple is now poised to use some of its estimated US$76.2 billion in cash for deals following Jobs’ death.

"They don’t need all that cash,” Keith Goddard of Capital Advisors told Bloomberg. “It won’t change their growth rate to pay a dividend.”

The spotlight has now fallen on Apple’s CFO Peter Oppenheimer. According to Bloomberg, when Oppenheimer took the CFO job in 2004 the company had about US$5 billion in cash and investments. That number almost tripled over the next three years to US$13.8 billion and then soared again in the following three years to more than US$40 billion by mid-2010.

“It’s been ridiculous for a long time, whether it’s US$75 billion or US$35 billion or US$25 billion,” said Andy Hargreaves, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities. “Apparently the board feels nothing has been necessary to this point.”

Experts believe that new CEO Tim Cook may be tempted to make some deals in areas such as entertainment, patents and security to keep rivals at bay.