In a business there are three basic ways to expand your market, technology, product line, etc. Develop it "in house"/sub-contract the work, form a strategic alliance or buy what you need.
The normal way to expand market share is through marketing, which is something that a lot of tech companies aren't very good at. Someone mentioned AOL and Yahoo. Each of those beat out their competitors primarily through superior marketing. The acquisitions, like AOL buying Compuserve, came much later.
Speaking from the perspective of a Web developer, Cybercash has the easiest technology to develop with. I'd never heard of ICVERIFY until Cybercash bought it. I've heard of Verifone, but after researching it I decided Cybercash was better.
It just seems to me like Cybercash's money might have been better spent on heavy marketing rather than acquisition. Banner ads all over the Web. Print ads in all the trade mags. Free disks to Web developers. That kind of thing.
I see acquisition as something you do when you're mature and you want good technology, or you want to kill off the upstarts before they get a chance to grow. Cisco is a good example of this. Also Microsoft. It just seemed strange, to me, to see an upstart doing the buying.
Clearly I'm in the minority in this view, and the market is agreeing with you folks.
Is there any chance that Cybercash was/is afraid of a takeover, and bought ICVERIFY as a poison pill?
rhet0ric |
