A Long Way To Go And A Short Time To Get There That is what HP (NYSE: HPQ) has ahead of themselves as they announce their bid of $52 per share or $4.5 billion to acquire Mercury Interactive Corporation (OTC: MERQ). The prognosticators at Israel’s Globes newspaper called this acquisition on May 1, 2006 but with a price tag of a paltry $3.5 billion. When this “fictitious” article hit the press, Mercury was quick to insist the rumors were false and expertly put a spin around the notion that they wanted to remain an independent software company, put the NASDAQ delisting behind them and continue to serve their constituents with high quality software. What a difference $1 billion can make! In Mercury’s defense, they were moving along in 2006 appearing as though they were going to remain independent and possibly even somehow re-invent themselves. Some examples of this pursuit were the two acquisitions made in 2006 totaling $123.5 million. For those keeping score the tab was $105 million for
I believe technology can be exploited to greater levels than we have allowed. We are constrained by 20th century business models and ideas. Collectively, we need to move past technology for the sake of technology and truly focus on moving markets beyond the status quo!