United Technologies Corporation Makes A Bid For Diebold

from the buy-now,-vote-later... dept

Mon, Mar 3rd 2008 12:55am — Mike Masnick

Just as the Onion is poking fun at Diebold for releasing the results of the 2008 Presidential election months early, it appears that United Technologies Corporation is attempting a hostile takeover of the company after it turned down a private offer. Diebold is mostly known these days for its controversial e-voting business (which the company has renamed "Premiere" to try to disassociate it with the Diebold name) but is also a major player in the ATM business. Whether or not UTC takes the company over, there's little doubt that Diebold has done a terrible job responding to the questions and accusations about the security and reliability of its e-voting machines. Having a company like UTC come in and take over could actually do a lot for the company to regain some trust.

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

Filed Under: hostile takeover, mergers
Companies: diebold, united technologies corporation

11 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Joyce Carr, 3 Mar 2008 @ 2:53am

Diebold
Somebody needs to buy it and clean it up...what a golden opportunity if the reputation can be repaired. Even the least savvy user knows that the system Diebold uses for its voter is very poorly design and thus not credible.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 3 Mar 2008 @ 5:32am

Conflict of Interest
I have a bad feeling about this
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Wolf, 3 Mar 2008 @ 5:48am

The Onion vid was a hoot, and probably more accurate than we would like to think.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Vincent Clement, 3 Mar 2008 @ 7:10am

Re: Conflict of Interest
Why?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
piperonal, 3 Mar 2008 @ 8:59am

Oh no, very very bad--UT buying Diebold??
Lovely. So now the military-industrial-government complex enriches itself and the same company owns the voting machines?

Why not just come right out, burn down the Reichstag, and declare us fascist openly instead of sneaking around like no-one has noticed?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
bshock, 3 Mar 2008 @ 9:26am

What's left to trust?
You can't trust the machines, you can't trust the software, you can't trust the management, you can't trust the name.

What exactly would UTC be buying? Does Diebold have a particularly nice office building?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 3 Mar 2008 @ 9:45am

Why do I have a sickening feeling that if I start to google United Technologies Corporation and Hillary Clinton I'll get a ton of matches....

Is she still trying to win?!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 3 Mar 2008 @ 9:54am

Yep, I Was right
Well, well well: http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/article.aspx?Feed=PR&Date=20080128&ID=8099868&Sy mbol=UTX
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The Joker, 3 Mar 2008 @ 8:23pm

Who do you trust? Hubba Hubba Hubba Money Money Mo
Hey, If it has Jack Nicholson's seal of approval, who elses does it need?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsweXFpfa28
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 3 Mar 2008 @ 8:31pm

Re: Who do you trust? Hubba Hubba Hubba Money Mone
Uh mine...

Hillary is getting way desparate, man. Give it up.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
jacks, 30 May 2009 @ 12:29am

ewr
Steel and aluminum scaffolding for construction is a very useful tool. How's China printing industry developed this years, who can tell us? China based injection molding services with low costs and supeior quality
[ link to this | view in thread ]