M & A giant always seems rather convoluted way, to the crowd eagerly waiting for April 6 Sun, IBM announced the acquisition of the message, and is given as the same as last year, Microsoft acquired Yahoo, negotiations broke news.
Leadership Tsinghua University Research Center co-Fang Qin received the "China Times" reporter that, IBM and Sun's current state of the two, like last year, "Microsoft to Yahoo to the drying up of the same."
Acquisition halted
April 6, to the parties that the acquisition of Sun, IBM will announce when the outside world seems a done deal did not think the merger of the two IT giants sudden dramatic change in the situation.On that day, sources confirmed that talks have broken down the two companies, IBM withdrew nearly $ 7,000,000,000 acquisition of Sun's tender offer.
The reason for the breakdown of the talks, the outside world vary.A statement said, because IBM had to offer from 10 dollars per share, down from just over 9 dollars and do not want to promise the acquisition of the contract, even if the transaction due to regulatory review and other factors also appear to defer to complete the transaction.
It is reported to IBM to Sun quoted is now considered the acquisition of $ 9.4 per share terms, if the IBM acquisition of Sun, Sun's largest shareholder of the Southeastern United States Southeastern Asset Management asset management companies will lose more than 500 million U.S. dollars.It is reported that Southeastern Asset Management Company to $ 2,130,000,000, with an average purchase of $ 13.25 per share, Sun 22% of the shares.If the IBM acquisition of $ 9.4 per share, Southeastern Asset Management company will only recover about 1.5 billion U.S. dollars of funds.
The other, saying that because of disagreement within the Board of Directors Sun, a source said, Sun board of directors in the acquisition transaction is divided into two factions, one by Sun co-founder, Scott McNealy, chairman, led by Scott McNealy, is opposedtrade school and those who order, led by CEO Jonathan Schwartz Jonathan Schwartz, is to support trade school.
In short, no matter how the end result causes a dramatic mutation, this is easy to think of the industry to Microsoft Yahoo's acquisition last year, was also repeatedly and eventually up to now has not reached the two acquisitions.
Or divestment
Information, Sun was one of the world's largest server vendors, and storage services and open source software leader, has attracted wide popular Java products.
However, Sun has recently experienced great pressure on the operation, due to decline in server sales, is facing a loss of 6-year high in the past two quarters the company's total of almost 19 billion in net losses.
Sun has been since last November trying to reverse the experience through the restructuring of the adverse situation, such as 5000-6000 were announced layoffs in the world (about 15% of the total staff -18%), while the software sector is divided into three business units, namely,Application Platform software division, department and cloud computing platform and developer platform division, and will focus on the promotion of open source technologies and development of technology as a competitive weapon in the new markets.
But most analysts believe that Sun can not solve the urgent needs of the restructuring, the general view that Sun fiscal year by the end of June this year sales will be down 11%.In late March, "The Wall Street Journal," Sun first reported the news of the acquisition of IBM, stimulated in the news, Sun's share price jumped nearly 80% of the time.
"IBM's overall technology strategy is to guide the information industry to focus on computing power from scattered from the center of the terminal regression. If the formation of this industry structure, IBM may again become a dominant force. Sun in the technological advantages of high-end serversand market share will help strengthen the center of IBM computing power dominance. "Qin Fang together to accept the" China Times "reporter, analysts said.
Market research institute IDC, the market share in 2008, the first four services are: IBM31.4%, HP 29.5%, Dell 11.6%, Sun ranked fourth, the market share of 10.6%.If the IBM acquisition of Sun, its market share will reach 42%, far more than second place Hewlett-Packard, a company accounts for nearly half of the global server market.
But there are also ideas that IBM is not limited to Chinese and Sun's server products.IBM hardware business because of the importance of the decline, and in the past 20 years, Sun has been the Silicon Valley of the most important "innovation center" of one of its innovations, including many software technologies such as Java programming language, Solaris operating system.
In any case from the present situation, it is clear that there is also the acquisition of two companies to this objection, while Sun's share price came after the failure of negotiations, is down 25%, while the original Sun's third-largest shareholder Relational Investors LLC to sell the company4.7% held by Sun shares.The assertion that the next step if the two can not reach another acquisition negotiations, Sun will likely divest in order to attract investors.
That co-Fang Qin, IBM gave the Sun quoted a relatively high (relative to the capital market pricing is), then there is the offer as a benchmark, even if IBM does not make acquisitions, it may acquire other competing companies will also feel worthwhile.He believes that the current state of the two companies, like last year, "Microsoft to Yahoo to the drying up of the same."