Slashdot Mirror
Software Companies - Merge or Die?
pillageplunder writes "This article in Businessweek points out that large software companies like Siebel, BMC and Veritas are all warning that 2nd quarter results would be lower, and predicts a shakeout. According to the article, 'Investment bankers say half of the sector's 600 publicly traded companies are likely to be eliminated.' Ouch!"
Oh...wait....
Once that happens, won't that mean about 75% of publicly traded companies will be gone since the dot com bust? A second round, I guess.
I hope the company I work for never goes public. I'd rather stay small and slightly profitable than get a whole bunch of money and blow it.
Without competition software will just get worse, with no need to improve.
Large companies have a tendency to acquire smaller companies and keep them as a separate department, but they inevitably get phased out over time and absorbed into the larger entity. How many people really want to deal with the software giants past a point?
Why don't companys just change their values instead of trying to screw people? There was an article about bad customers on slashdot earlier and I think a bigger problem is poor treatment of customers. Seriously look at all the marketing where there are large rebates instead of just marking the product down to a more reasonable rate. All the rebates done hoping the people won't be able to collect on them later. This isn't exactly friendly business. Large companies who's values are supposed to be integrity and people are firing their workers and trying to cut every corner just to raise their own stock options. Wouldn't it be better business to make better products and hire people from the countries that you are selling to instead of making products that break and sending your money to other countries. Aren't large companies in effect draining the economy that they are trying to tap with their current business plans? I think business should just try to do a few things to improve their products. 1)Make things right the first time. I can't tell you how many companies I've stopped buying from cause their products are flawed. 2) Value people. Give friendly customer support and stop trying to give every excuse in the book not to work. If you offer a warrenty you should honor it for everyone and not just big business.
Its going to be ugly in software. 75% of firms are on borrowed time.
Open-source is the Japanese motorcycle industry. At the moment, we're about where motorcycles were in the late 1970s - they're pretty good, and they work and work well. But we haven't reached the Honda CG125 (a million pizza-delivery boys can't be wrong), or the mighty mighty Fireblade, yet...
Don't ever make your company public. Once you do, it stops being a company and instead a money-collector. Instead of a commercial entity which produces (hopefully) a superior product, you are controlled by people who more than likely don't give a rat's ass about what is made, unless it's money. This is the problem, they don't care how the money is made, so they'll press for cutting corners at every opportunity, and make a prime target for "mergers". Mergers are just an excuse to cut even more corners, by taking advantage of economy of scale. However, once one player in the field does this, the others must follow or be eaten up. Thus is perpetuates until we reach a number of large companies which are too large and bloated to react to demand and conditions, and fudge the books, or stifle innovation in order to keep what rightfully should be a corpse alive. True innovation will always be carried out by dedicated individuals or small groups, possibly in a private company, but these large ones are just disasters waiting to happen.
I really have a tough time relating to an article that has to explain that IT is an accronym for info-tech. Stupid analysts are just guessing anyway, half of software companies being gobbled up seems a bit overstated.
in bed.
Maybe the mergers will lead to more jobs, but my guess is that most mergers will be followed by layoffs (and possibly more overseas outsourcing).
The hemorraging of outsourced jobs will stop once the first big security problem arises. Be it, proprietary code stolen, trojan horse inserted (perhaps by a foreign government), etc. Unfortunately, it'll take something of this magnitude to make companies realize that the short-term dollars saved in outsourcing will cose them long-term when the real problems arise.