Divine Goes Down
from the bye-bye dept
Divine, the Chicago-based internet company that has reinvented itself many many times has now declared bankruptcy and is looking to sell off assets. The company has never had much of a clear strategy. Originally, they tried to be an internet incubator like all the other big (now flamed out) names, but ran into problems with that. There were also questions when they went public about how they were set up. For example, it probably pays to stay away from a company that has 44 board members. More recently, in a desperate play for some cash, they made an ill-advised attempt to force e-commerce sites to license their questionable shopping cart patent. Finally, last month, their money troubles became public when it was determined that instead of passing on the money they collected magazine subscriptions from its Rowecom subsidiary, they were using that money to fund operations.
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