Pride Destroyed Lucent Merger

from the how-much-is-it-worth-to-make-a-deal-look-good? dept

The rumors are flying about the collapse of the Lucent-Alcatel merger/acquisition. Basically, the feeling is that Lucent's chairman bailed out because he didn't want it to look like an acquisition, but a merger of equals. This is ridiculous. The fact is that almost any "merger" is really an acquisition in the end, and it seems that if everything else makes sense for a deal - perception over the merger/acquisition issue seems like a stupid sticking point. That said, there was plenty of other evidence flying around suggesting that no matter how they set up the deal it would be bad news for one or both companies. For those of you who have some philosophical problem with stories from the NY Times (you know who you are) here's a similar (though less focused) version of the story from News.com.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Stephen Kellett, 31 May 2001 @ 4:32am

    No Subject Given

    yup I have a problem with having to remember far to many passwords and getting fed up with being repeatedly asked to register. Its not like they'll ever get a subscription from me. I live in the UK!

    Stephen Kellett

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Mike (profile), 31 May 2001 @ 9:09am

    Re: No Subject Given

    This got me thinking. For all the crap that readers here have been giving me about the NY Times (and again, I repeat that it's really really easy to find a user name/password combo that is available out there and will let you into their site without giving away any personal info), they are so much better than many of these free sites.

    They don't give me anoying pop up ads. They don't try to get me to subscribe to the paper version. The layout is clean and quick. While they do occasionally (and not very often) have stories that go onto multiple pages they are the only content site I've seen that officially has a "single page view" (and not just a "printable view" as a way to fake that). I really don't think that having to register once (with whatever information you want) and leaving a cookie is that big a price to pay for such things.

    And, I haven't even mentioned the fact that the content they have tends to be pretty good, too...

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.