Should the interests of customers be taken into account in a corporate
acquisition? Many readers answered this question by referring to their own
experience.
"The great danger in this situation is the impact it can have on your (IT)
staff," wrote one reader who recalled when Computer Associates acquired a
critical vendor for his previous company. "The migration was so painful
most of us wound up leaving, so they brought in almost a whole new staff.
When in turned out they couldn't make the CA stuff work either, the
company ultimately had to drop CA … and basically start over.
Naturally, that meant just about 100 percent turnover in the staff once
again."
Some readers thought an Oracle takeover of PeopleSoft might not be that
bad. "I'll stick my two cents in here because I have experienced one of
these acquisitions," wrote another reader. "As long as there are enough
PeopleSoft users who will stick with the product, Oracle will maintain it.
Why? Because nearly every PeopleSoft user is paying about 20% of the
original purchase price as an annual maintenance fee. Oracle wants that
money. No Oracle support, no renewal of maintenance, no revenue for
Oracle. Any attempt by Oracle to strongarm a migration will result in
evaluations of other packages. Can Oracle really be arrogant enough to
believe that more than 10% or 20% of the PeopleSoft users would choose to
switch their software?"
Most agreed that it's not just shareholders who have a stake that should
be taken into consideration. "Not just customers, but employees should
also be figured into the equation," wrote another reader. "The laws in
this country support the notion that corporate boards of directors are
responsible only to the shareholders. To that extent, it's a sensible
philosophy. What is or should be open to debate is the nature of that
responsibility. When I buy shares in a company, I'm not looking to get a
fast buck from it being sold. That's speculating, not investing. Rather,
I'm expecting the company to generate reasonable returns on my investment
for the long term. Any acquisition has three sets of stakeholders: the
shareholders of both companies, the customers of both companies, and the
employees of both companies. If any one of these is not taken into proper
consideration, the acquisition will ultimately fail in one way or another
-- lost customers, lost profits, or whatever."
11:16:17 AM 
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