Bad Business The FTC has

Bad Business
The FTC has approved the proposed HP buyout of Compaq, and a major investing house has weighed in positively — so the deal will probably go through. (I can’t remember the name of the investment firm, and I can’t find the link. I saw the story this afternoon on Cavuto on Fox.)

A couple things.

Some call this plan a “merger.” Perhaps. But only in the same way the Daimler-Benz/Chrysler deal was a merger. They may all speak (accented) English, but the decisions are made in Stuttgart, not Auburn Hills. Let me assure you that Palo Alto will be boss in this “merger.”

Second, the combined companies still won’t have a model to beat Dell in direct PC sales or much of anyone else in retail. Sony at least has a rep for A/V integration with their VIAO machines and Apple still appeals to Mac diehards — but can you remember anyone saying, “I’m looking first at HP (or Compaq) computers”?

All this merger will do is let a single company fall further, rather than two companies stumble around.

UPDATE: It took damn near an hour to get this post up through Blogger. I’m so glad to be paying the extra expense for my own domain. Who here has anything good or bad to say about Moveable Type?