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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Senator949 who wrote (75363)	1/7/2000 10:08:00 AM
From: Captain Jack	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 97611

Robin <<" before Compaq stole the company.... ">> I think many would have a much different opinion of who got the bad end of that stick...

To: Senator949 who wrote (75363)	1/7/2000 10:45:00 AM
From: rudedog	Respond to of 97611

Robin - I don't think the Alpha system would have qualified as a PC... RE: the comments about "stole the company" and the feedback - it seems obvious to me that this was a stunningly good business deal but a big culture shock for CPQ. Given that CPQ got almost all of the cash back from the deal almost immediately, recovered the stock trade already via the sale of AV to CMGI (not even counting the value of their retained 18% stake), and so essentially has the high end line, Alpha and the services business for free, it is pretty easy to say that from a business standpoint it was a steal. I have heard that more than half of the enterprise business profit (i.e. more than $300M net) comes from the OVMS and other Alpha lines, and services. But from a cultural standpoint, it seems to have been pretty much a disaster. There were 4 DEC people for every CPQ person, and the management philosophies and culture were so different that a clash seemed inevitable. The results certainly lived up to expectations, and folks tell me that even today there is integration only in some of the field teams, and that the development groups are still as separate as before the merger. Long term that has to change if the acquisition is to be successful. I am not really that close to the DEC people so my info may be suspect, but that's what I hear.