Posted by Martyn R Jones on February 01, 2002 at 09:55:40:

In Reply to: Re: KM, Business and Mergers: A question posted by Chris on January 30, 2002 at 07:39:29:

Hi Chris,

It is nearly always sunny in Cordoba !!! :-)

Yes, I find the term "merger" to be much abused, reminds me of a Spanish comic film from 92 entitled ¿Por qué lo llaman amor cuando quieren decir sexo? (why do they call it love when they would like to say sex?)

I am also very wary of the validity of mergers of large corporations that compete in the same markets, I have seen the culture of contempt for the competition taken to such a degree that mergers have almost ended in the terminal destruction of both parties -- one such example is that of Sperry hardware engineers, software people and what used to be called Univac Assets (software and hardware experts), they had a huge contempt for "Johnny come lately" Burroughs people who they defined, at best, as a bunch of amateurs playing and IT. Put it another way, if you have ever seen the movie Hampones then Burroughs would be likened to Dutch Schultz, where as Sperry looked at themselves as something much more refined, elegant and hugely innovative. Burroughs seemed like cheap suits, bad computers and disgruntled employees whereas Sperry seemed like elitist club for rather, interesting and funny smart girls and boys. Mergers like that don't work, it's the culture clash, it creates havoc.

I guess the only way around that is to fire everone in one of the two companies, which seems pretty pointless and possibly cause for a company to be closely scrutinized by the IRS, amongst other things.

Cheers

Martyn

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