Anyone else out there confused by the "merger mania" that's going on around the world?

My first thought is that the smaller company is delighted to be eaten by the bigger company because now problems such as Y2K belongs to the bigger fish.

Do the big fish really believe they can add the newly aquired company's Y2K problems to their current Y2K problems and get them done? Or, are these folks so greedy they can't see the underlying problems that might jeapordize their entire organization?

Please, any corporate types out there...please fill us in.

-- Pastor Chris (chrisbr@ptinet.net), June 25, 1998

Answers

If the little fish's *data* is consumed and stored on the big fish's Y2K compliant systems, then the little fish's Y2K incompliant systems can be discarded. Machines come and go - data is everything (IMHO).

In a perfect world.

There is still the issue of countless Y2K-incompliant PCs, and conversion of Y2K-incompliant data, but this is much more managable than a massive number of massive software modifications.

-- Anon (anon@anon.com), June 25, 1998.

A significant reason for a lot of the mergers currently going on is that the acquiring company believes its stock is overvalued compared to the acquired company, and so it can acquire another company using artifically inflated currency. I think that most of the current mergers are stock deals, not cash deals. <<<<<<>>>>>>>.

-- Dan Hunt (dhunt@hostscorp.com), June 25, 1998.

Very scary scenarios, but the juggernaut has been dancing for a very long time now, hasn't it? Only a matter of time and big enough crisis to assault the "closed system". How foolish for people to think and school generations, at least since the 1950s, that development and limitless gluttony could go on forever. I feel fortunate in that I never was much attracted to the corporate world, and stuck to good old pre-20th C. occupations....teacher, musician, instrument technician.....looking forward to candle lit sing alongs, while not keeping watch for trouble-makers. I'm no Luddite, like electric light and schtuff....but if TSHTF I won't miss all the ignorant waste and conspicuous consumption. Hang in there everyone.

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), June 29, 1998.