“WhathappensnexttoTwitter?”That’sthequestionsomeoneaskedmetheotherday，afterSalesforce.comCRMpubliclysworeoffabidtobuythepioneeringmessagingcompany.Twitter’sstockhadfallen30%fromthepeakofitsdeal-rumor-fueledhigh. Google ，Disney ， and Microsoft MSFT were all said to be uninterested as well. My immediate response: “Oh， that’s easy: It becomes a zombie.”A zombie is a company that people once were interested in that joins the ranks of walking dead. Software maker Sybase was a zombie for years before SAP SAP 0.26% finally bought it. Blackberry BBRY -1.60% ， once known as Research in Motion， recently recognized its zombie status by discontinuing the product line that made it famous， smartphones. Zynga ZNGA -2.46% ， the “social” gaming company， has groped in the dark for four years now， more highly prized for its real estate than its prospects to release hit games.Its rich valuation of $12 billion notwithstanding， Twitter is on its way to zombiehood. Though Twitter TWTR -0.06% loses gobs of money， it does generate a small amount of cash. Its losses are a result of spending an amount equal to 30% of revenues on equity grants to its employees， a non-cash expense. The small cash flow plus an ample balance sheet mean Twitter could last for years. Yet it isn’t growing and doesn’t earn money. More， its compensation expense is a Silicon Valley-inflicted Catch-22: Without the stock grants it won’t be able to attract talent， further diminishing its growth prospects. Fortune’s Mathew Ingram surfaced a hedge fund manager who thinks Twitter is ripe for buyout by a cost-cutting private-equity firm. That seems unlikely as asset-light tech firms don’t lend themselves well to financial engineering.There’s a reason， after all， that investors in Salesforce opposed the purchase CEO Marc Benioff was keen to make. They saw Twitter’s finances hurting the cloud software leader， which itself isn’t yet profitable.Being a zombie can’t be fun. But the living dead tend to stay that way for a long time.Have a lively week.