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U.S. Approves IBM/Lenovo Sale
MartinB writes with the "Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review result: unanimous approval for the sale to go ahead, with no further external approvals needed. No compromises were required over the location of Lenovo facilities in sensitive research areas, nor were limits put on Lenovo's ability to sell PCs to U.S. agencies."
Happy times are here again.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
.............just kidding ;)
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approved the sale of Slashdot to Elbonian investors. New color schemes will be in earth tones. "Yes, different colors of mud!", stated one of the eventual new managers of the enterprise.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The x86 is done.
As I understand it, this sale is more of a few-years lease.
Orgnisations with bucket loads of money get a decision they want. Film at 11.
Beep beep.
THis was only on the "security" issues...
In truth, most all of the materials are now made in China, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, etc.
So in such light PC and component manufacturering really doesn't pose a "security" risk. Which is what this was ALL about.
The jobs aren't there to begin with...so no worry over loss of jobs moving to China.
You don't have to be Carnac to guess most motherboards, CD drives, DVD drives, PSUs, cabinets and wiring is already being manufactured in the PRC.
Chances are the keyboard and mouse you used in your posting, as well as the screen you are viewing, came from there as well.
i for one welcome our new Lenoverlords!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Perhaps there will be jobs in China for me to work in? At least the food is better, if not as diverse.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
I'm surprised that they even thought of stopping the deal. I've always viewed USA as a country that tries very hard to support businesses.
Um... "Sound business decisions" in a business sense are all about making money. If this "decision" puts money in the fatcat's pockets then it sounds like a "sound business decision" for him.
In the larger market sense it may or may not be a good thing, but that certainly depends on your POV. However, I disagree with the prevailing sentiment here that all mergers are inherently evil and motivated by monopolistic greed. Sometimes the logistical considerations are such that a merger can benefit everyone.
What will become of the beloved Thinkpads? Will Lenovo continue to maintain the same level of quality that IBM has?
More interestingly, I'd be interested to see if IBM started producing affordable powerpc laptops and desktops running Linux. It seems Microsoft can no longer wield the Windows tax against IBM.
The article is ~ 5 minutes old, and there's 10+ anti-china/america sold out posts already.
China and Taiwan ~already~ mass-produce the vast majority of systems components, their final assembly was pretty much the only remaining domestic manufacturing process. Also, IBM is being VERY wise in this regard, cashing in a unit that has very little future projected revenue growth and miniscule profit margins, and will gain the capital for some future expansion. PCs are a commodity business, and with the exception of Dell are probably a loss-leader for most companies now (e.g. IBM, HP/Compaq).
This is a wise business move by IBM, and it was wise for the US gov't to involve themselves in the sale. The technology is 20+ years old, the industry is commoditised, and its all open-standards based... there is no strategic threat here.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Does this deal leave IBM free to persue building a new PC based on Cell Processor and/or PowerPC technology, instead of the increasingly less efficient x86? If so, selling off the trailing edge x86 business would just be a smart business move, wouldn't it?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
IBM is faced with the same dillema HP faces.
The only way to make money in the PC biz is by selling directly to consumers, bypassing the supply chain of stores, merchants, etc. But this conflicts with, among other things, IBM's consulting business which relies upon dealing with people, building relationships, rubbing backs, etc., etc.
HP faces a similar problem. The only way for them to make money in the PC biz is to sell directly to consumers. But this conflicts with their need for pushing printers and printer supplies which requires using the supply chain.
Instead HP is shedding money with their PC selling business and not doing so well in the printer biz. Good job Carly! But I digress.
Let the Chinese have the fun task of competing head on with Dell, IBM will do what they do best.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
American Manufacturing died to day after a long illness. Repeated attempts to save American jobs and secure a domestic manufacturing base in case of war were repeatedly rejected by the new American ruling class who no are no longer responsible to a once powerful American middle class. Spokesmen for the powerful said that the death of manufacturing promotes growth, despite the fact America had higher growth rates when it did manufacture things. In related news, illegal immigration and guest worker visas rose dramaticly and new tax breaks for the super wealthy were enacted. Stay tuned to official news sources like the New York Times and Fox News and don't bitch.
Windows isn't really done, but this was my thought when IBM put their pc business up for sale. Back in the day, it was this group because of pressure from Microsoft that would put up internal ibm roadblocks to their own OS/2. I imagine they initially weren't that friendly to Linux, either. Dumping this low-margin business though has the added benefit of letting IBM focus on their hardware and services. If IBM wants to sell Linux, OS/400, Windows, etc, there's not much msft can do about it legally or otherwise now.
So IBM developed the PC and brought the current rendition to market. Fortunately for us and for all PC users they allowed their designs to be copied (clones anyone) thus putting apple forever in the dark. Since they did this, market forces have determined that IBM should no longer be in the PC business. Frankly, who cares? There are thousdands of other businesses that makes PCs now. The only reason I would care is if Lenovo gets the IP that encompasses the PC they may try to charge royalties for anyone using their IP to make a producat (go frivalous patents!).
I am d3matt
Yeah, real clever, making fun of how somebody speaks.
Of course it might help if you got the right foriegn language speakers. Japanese is notorious for not having an l/r distinction, not Mandarin (or Cantonese as far as i'm aware).
Distinguish your asians, jerk.
There are lives at stake here!
the x86 architecture is done!
Oh. Oops.
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
Sorta. The division itself is being sold outright, but the ability to badge the computers as IBMs is a five-year deal.
me so sorry.
Given that when you show Chinese entrepenuers how to build anything, they'll immediately transfer that knowledge to their brother-in-law down the street to make cheap cloned products, I'd say the sale is pretty much permanent! Anybody want to start a pool on how soon bootleg thinkpads hit the market?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Happy times are here again.
Words can be found here
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So, does this mean that IBM is finally out from under the Microsoft joint-development agreement, that dates back to the days of the original PC and PC-XT?
Chip H.
Let's all hope that a plump Elbonian is taking a walk when CmdrTaco lands there after being tossed out of the plane.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
However, I also disagree that share price should be taken as the only metric of company success. Any single metric that becomes too dominant will imbalance things and have ultimately negative consequences. In this specific case, I think it's part of the general hollowing out of American industry and strengthening of Chinese industry--which mostly reminds me of what happened in America before the Civil War. The South became a militarily-strong, industrially-weak debtor.
From the more narrow perspective of IBM, my main concern is that this deal could weaken IBM's "empathy" for customers in lower-margin businesses. Unfortunately, the way the numbers work, most companies are average or below by any specific metric, which in this case means that most of IBM's corporate customers are involved in relatively low-margin businesses. IBM won't share that situation with them after this.
One more thing in the "other values" category. For example, one of IBM's other non-share-price values is "supporting diversity" by deliberately hiring many kinds of people. Well, I think that "supporting commodity computers" is also a value that was worth supporting and something that benefits a lot of people, even if the profits are slim. However, in IBM's specific case, all of the high-margin businesses depend on computers, so there's a strong and direct benefit from that support...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I don't think laptops were included in the deal.
PowerPCs don't make those 3 notes that account for 50% of Dell's advertising budget.
Ah, it's all so clear now: Scooby-Doo and Astro have japanese accents
I don't speak like that and I am a chinese!
I am offended....
Is that the best you can do? Mod it down? How 'bout some legit. criticism?
I don't understand the negative reaction. Production is no longer in the US, but that is not where the money is. IBM realised that they could make a lot of money (and, incidentally, create a lot of relatively high paid, relatively pleasant jobs) by abstracting further up the value chain, to supply services and consultants. It matters not a fig to most companies who provides their computers, but many large companies cannot operate without IBM services. So we have a company that no provides high skilled, high payed jobs to the US workforce instead of low payed, low skilled manufacturing jobs.
it's just a fucking joke, asswipe. i know the difference between japanese and chinese and i modded him funny anyway - it's a fucking JOKE!
p.s. welcome to my foes list
Yes they were. There have been advertisements in the WSJ for a while now.
Yeah, they probably don't actually use MSG in all the restaurants over there.
Fat chance! Where do you think the idea came from? They use piles of it, literally. There's often a mound of it next to the stove, where a Western chef would have his salt/pepper/herbs/spices.
But I'm sure you'll get over it quickly...after all, this is Slashdot.
The OSI called, they want you to be their next President.
owie. the IBM logo hurts my eyes.
Yes, but for generations the USA business support was dressed up in attacks on Communism. IBM is a symbol of American business (the "B" stands for "Business") - selling their PC biz to a Chinese company is a little strange, in that light. But it really just shows how "Communism" and "Capitalism" are just the ways to describe how governments do business, which would be an unacceptable mix in a pure version of either system.
--
make install -not war
Look at them now. Sure they got cheap labor and upturned local markets everywhere, but globalisation is distributing the riches from the first world countries right down to the poorer nations. They never really figured that out quite rightly.
Yes, yes, the people in control are of course getting richer but the avg guy is actually earning less. Also this phenomenon is so apparent local America. It's pathetic how anywhere you go in the US you get the same Denny's, Mac, BK, TacoB, OG, etc... In most of the places, the local cuisines and restaurants are all dead. Most American downtowns are going that way too. A drive through them on the weekends portrays them as ghost towns literally.
My point? ThinkPads are definately going in the drain. 20 years ago most garments sold in the US were made here. Most stores guaranteed them. Today you see no-one guarantees anything because everyones is unsure of who's pulling what outta whose arse. That's what's gonna happen with Lenovo too.
Where's my free iPod!? Until then, I'll settle for a kiss...
The IBM/Lenovo sale is IBM's strategy to sell past China's protectionist trade barriers. It's gotten wide support because it's probably unique in requiring the Chinese company to move some operations to the US, to allow IBM to use them to reach the Chinese market with the rest of their products and services. It's kind of odd how your pro-globalism post bashes people suspicious of IBM sending essential industry to China, but doesn't complain about those Chinese protectionist barriers. Is your "globalism" really just a cover for a culture war you prefer to actual free global trade?
--
make install -not war
correction me so solly
Chinkpads
go ahead, all you PC-people... mod me into oblivion, even though you smiled when you read it.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
But it's not funny. Even had it been a japanese company, it's barely recongizable as a joke :p And it's irritating because it just serves to further untrue stereotypes.
I can take a joke. i won't take easily avoided misinformation.
There are lives at stake here!
Obviously, you don't the language deficit listed above is a japanese one. Now my wife is Chinese and she does lawn the mow and confuses chicken and kitchen. But then you should hear my chinese. We need to laugh at our seperate short comings. Well mine isn't that short, well anyway.
"We Delivery"
I thought that IBM laptops were already being built in China. So any informal "technology transfer" would have already been going on. This is just selling them the business side of the operation. What, you're worried that they'll learn secrets American shady accounting practices and stock manipulation? Where the hell are they gonna outsource all their jobs to to pump up their stock?!!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The word is IBM is using the Lenovo connection to get into the China market. And from the whole WAPI thing, the Chinese government might just be anti-western-dominated-standards enough to support a POWER-powered desktop on the mainland.
US caves to new Superpower China. No Film, as our new overlords won't allow it.
Feh. Silly Humans.
My keyboard was made in Amsterdam! I can still smell the gras!
Oh wait!
At least that's what we're planning for the huge flag on the side of the building to greet our new Overlords.
The funniest irony of all was that the PC Division, that rathole they poured billions down which rarely if ever made a profit finally made a huge chunk of change selling itself off and as a result those employees are getting the largest bonuses in the company, on a division by division basis. Lesson learned? Fuck your business up until someone buys it at firesale prices then claim a huge a victory, rake in your pile of cash. All the other IBM divisions should learn from this.
I stand corrected. Thanks.
Can believe China's technology was so...
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
It's like a pretty school nurse with a tiny little deformed fetal twin attached to her face!
Back in 2001/2002 IBM desktop manufacturing was sold off to Sanmina-SCI.
Shortly after that the manufacturing moved out of country.
The Lenovo deal transfers those serfs known as engineers, product testers, and world wide tech support from IBM to the new company.
It remains to be seen if the engineering and product support are shipped off to China.
In my experience working for a Taiwanese OEM/ODM, the Chinese OEM's are not interested in quality-oriented design features unless their biggest customer demands or somehow provides it.
They aren't very interested in providing anywhere near the level of customer service of an American company either.
They see huge profit margins if they remove those quaint American features called "quality" and "service."
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Have been US for some time, haven't got any real food except in New Orleans.
What? That region is called "French Quarter"? Never mind then.
Lots of metrics, though the obvious one is political donations--and to the best of my knowledge IBM does not donate to political parties or encourage employees in any way to donate
IBM doesn't have a PAC, which is probably a good move since typically these organizations end up donating to both sides to hedge their bets. But it does participate extensively in lobbying, which I see as just as bad as campaign donations, and have less oversight.
However, I also disagree that share price should be taken as the only metric of company success.
I agree, since share price is more a representation of sentiments of how the company is perceived, rather than a metric of actual company health. However, the shareholders are the ones in charge, they are the ones the CEO has to please. You need to balance, running the company, and not disappointing shareholders.
In this specific case, I think it's part of the general hollowing out of American industry and strengthening of Chinese industry--which mostly reminds me of what happened in America before the Civil War.
I see it differently, the South never changed, it stayed with it's cotton fields taking advantage of its supply of cheap labor. The north changed, gave up the lower value items for the south to produce and focused on higher value industries. In the 70's and 80's electronic manufacturing moved to asia to take advantage of cheaper labor markets, and the US focused on using the cheaper goods for more value added industries such as software. As software is becoming a commodity and being outsourced, domestic companies can focus on more value added activities such as consulting.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
"which mostly reminds me of what happened in America before the Civil War. The South became a militarily-strong, industrially-weak debtor."
Great example and a point I have been trying to make. Local optimizations sometimes can cause global catastrophe.
Well I guess I will need to find a replacement for the ThinkPad line... very sad.
Can a communist written pc bios be trusted (e.g., by the US military) to not contain logging or remote access holes?
Well, it isn't the greed so much as it is an outright transfer of intellectual property to a company subsidized and controlled by the Chinese government.
Beyond the obvious foolishness of purchasing computer hardware built in a country who may become a combatant enemy, (don't start. it isn't red-baiting) the United States already has 160 billion dollar (USD$160,000,000,000) trade deficit with China.
But I guess it doesn't matter much nowadays. What with the US being morally bankrupt, we may as well become fiscally bankrupt to complete the picture while we slide into third-world country status.
I hate this, now the Chinese are digesting our good companies, and we're letting them.
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
Did you see the MSG sign with the line through at the bottom of the page you linked?
I agree with those who view this as a smart move by IBM. Here's why:
... but I digress.
... anyway, that's hopeless speculation. Although, economically we are similar to Rome militarily. ... but now this is just the rambling of an IT guy who majored in History.
1. They sell a branch of the company that was often losing money for cold hard cash.
2. They get 19% of a Chinese company, giving them a way past China's trade barriars. They get a headstart on everyone else providing high end technology services to a booming Chinese economy that lacks said expertese and has the means to pay for it. Meanwhile HP languishes under two divisions of PC manufacturing (HP & Compaq.) Way to go Carly
3. Did I mention that this gives IBM a way to sell products and services to the Chinese? Potentially billions to be made before the Chinese technology providers mature to IBM's level. (Note: I'm not saying that China lacks intelligent people, it's just that the US/Western world has spents decades longer training thousands more techs. It won't take them long to catchup though.)
4. If the US screws up their economy too bad IBM has a lifeline! I really hope that letting the dollar fall in value helps with the trade gap and makes it possible for US manufacturing to pick back up. I do not think that the US economy will crash in 10 or 20 years. I do worry that it will crash in 50 to 100 years. I also fear that the US will decide the best thing to do is plunder a few countries via conquest with their surplus military equipment
The Romans were so confident in their legions that they stopped inovating. After all, they conquered everyone worth conquering, right? Wrong, they got beat by wandering nomads who actually fought differently than the Romans were used to: how dare they?! Western based companies, often spear headed by American companies, have dominated the economy for fifty years now, but people are starting to play by their own rules. Will they be able to compete or will the 'barbarians' decimate their legions with unorthodox tactics. I honestly hope something in the middle happens
Is China just some freaking sea of factories? _Everything_ comes from there.
and they spit globs of spit everywhere...yucksksks
China has been, for hundreds of years, excepting a few decades in the second half of the 20th century when they shut themselves off from the barbarians of the west who were carving up their country into colonies. Expect much, much more to come.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
At least in the female aspect of you post- when I lived in china a few months ago, I had no fewer than 10 girlfriends. Really, finding a girlfriend in china is like the proverbial shooting fish in a barrell... I guess, unless you are a complete dorky loser.
As for the dialects and food- true. But you can do well learning the main dialect (Mandarin), and English will get you by in Shanghai, Beijing and perhaps Shenzhen/Guangzhou.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
It certainly wasn't the Chinese !
I'm certainly not saying the Chinese are perfect, however, you post reads like you consider that the US is.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
Are they scared to say what they say and put their actual pseudonym or even their name to it ?
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
I agree very much on the argument that this deal takes IBM out of the realm of being in the same boat as many of its customers - that of knowing what a low-cost, high volume business with margins that grocery retailers are used to, is like. This may be a very good thing, especially to IBMs accountants - oops, executives (the days of sales guys running the company have long gone - they are all bean counters now). In my experience I think that IBM has essentially lost money in the PC business every year since about 1987. The venture into MicroChannel based PS/2 systems was an effort to reclaim the heady days of 70% market share, and keeping the market in the modest volume, high margin end; they sold a million PS/2 systems in the first year, and it cost them 100M USD to do so (I recall Ed Lucente standing up and saying that). But my observation is that the high volume business is where real innovation comes from. It gives the whole company an appreciation of the speed that product development has to run at, to make money in this world. We don't have the luxury any more of research efforts taking years, and product development taking years after that. I remember when IBM Greenock, Scotland was in the business of competing in the OEM marketplace (and if you think that retail PC is tough, wait till you sell components to PC manufacturers). Product development went to 6-3-3 (6 months development, 3 months ramp, 3 months volume production before End Of Life) and then to 4-2-2. It was scary stuff for a company who came from 3:1 or 4:1 price:cost ratios, but they were determined to succeed, and the effects of that transformation in the way product was developed and manufactured rippled down (up?) the company. Where exactly did PowerPC come from ? Sure - IBM had POWER - but the initiative to deliver huge performance in a commodity engine came from the joint venture with Apple and Motorola. Affordable 32- and 64-way machines like p690 and Squadron can trace their heritage to IBM trying to make it in the high volume low margins business. An absolute ton of appliances that keep our precious Internet running, are based on embedded PowerPC solutions. Apple clearly has survived in the epic struggle of the PC manufacturers with their machines based on that technology. Where is the next technology going to come from ? Without the striving to survive and to succeed; without the huge amounts of invention, self-reinvention that keeps a company making money by developing products in this IT world; unless you continue to compete in the high volume business, and invent to keep your margin and your edge, you are doomed.
They have more money than god and employ more people than live in North Dakota.
You can bet that IBM has Bush's ear - along with some of his other parts.
Exactly, but with one change. You forget that Rove is just a pawn in the crime family. George I is the real criminal. He's the one that hates americans with jobs. He's the one that was thrown out of the White House 12 years ago for his crimes.
It's depressing to see that no one is willing to fight against the new fascist junta in the US. The Democratic party is the only group with enough political power to do so, but they're too afraid. They've been following Bush II's orders for about four months now. Please support your local DNC. It's the only hope we have against these people that hate us so much they want to see us out of work and unable to afford shelter and food. They want our families to die from exposure and hunger.
I think you lose the argument this time because you started calling people names.
Just because someone thinks differently doesn't mean that you should call them names.
Tolerance and diversity means listening to opposing points of view and not crying about it.
Please think of using logic or rhetoric next time instead of whining.
Rules of American assignment of nationality:
1) Anyone from Asia is "Chinese"
2) Anyone whose native language is Spanish is "Mexican"
3) Anyone who speaks English and is not from the US is "English"
4) Anyone from the middle east or the Indian subcontinent is an "Arab" (unless they are Israeli)
5) Anyone from Scandinavia is "Swedish"
Everyone else is "furrin"
IBM for one welcome our new Chinese laptop overlords.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
almost not worth responding to
... and be
i feel the same way.
economic disaster
ohhh. doom and gloom. like inflation went
through the rough when the US did restrict cheap
foregn labor? ha ha. you're making shit up, dude.
look up the inflation rate between
1935 and 1975. Check out the
gini-coeffient stat for the same
time period.
xenophobia
What's with this "xenophobia" stuff?
Do you label everyone who disagrees with you
a "xenophobe". Please grow up
tolerant and respectful of opposing viewpoints
with out calling people names.
Yes. It's cherry picking. The period of 1935-1975 was characterized by ..
1) Strong Labor Unions.
2) Import/Export Controls
3) Low immigration.
4) High growth.
Many, many other social indicators point to it as a golden era.
Open borders and laissez faire has not brought the fantabulous growth promised.
I don't oppose immigration. I oppose illegal immigration and guest workers. I think the real xenophobes are the people who think that foreigners are only good for menial labor (illegal immigrants) or non-immigrant guest work (check out the official name of the H1-B visa program, it
explicity calls it a "non-immigrant" bill.)
Wanting a sane but lower quota immigration
system is not xenohobia. In fact, I think
we should put pressure on the goverments of Mexico, India, China and Eastern European countries to make them
treat their people better. I'd describe my
position as a form of xenophilia: some tough
love will benefit them. I think those people
would appreciate it.
Is it? Tell me that when you get my winmodem working.
the hard drives from Maxtor or Seagate or WDC
The software is mostly from Microsoft.
I could go on and on here.
the only real technology challange is the thermal design. How do you get the heat out.
IBM is not selling technology to China.
If someone is worried about security and back doors, their PC is going to be a major security risk regardless of the nationality of the Brand on the box. If someone wants security they should not be buying a PC with Windows.
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
We outsourced to IBM and they are already dealing with China directly. They were not waiting for approval, they were already in full swing. When the Chinese New Year struck we had to wait for hundreds of IBM hardware orders to ship while the Chinese factories simply shutdown. Thanks to 'Just In Time', IBM didn't have any in stock in the USA and had to wait for the Chinese shipment.
All of the shipments still go through customs. I ordered an Apple PowerBook online to get the cheaper model and upgrade it to the backlit keyboard. I had to wait about 3 extra days due to customs delays. Not fun, watching FexEx package tracking simply stall!
China has been throwing a hell of a lot of money into their military machine lately. We are talking about a hell of a lot of overkill! Certainly much more then is needed for mere self-defense. China has been threatening Taiwan more aggressively as well. China is still a Communist country and as such cannot be trusted. These are the same people who killed all those student protesters with tanks! They have sophisticated submarines an enormous army and nuclear warheads.
China is fighting to keep Hong Kong and Taiwan under control because they are the technological centers of China. They see the potential of capitalism in regards to the economy but they still don't trust diplomacy. Russia is similar. There are a whole lot of old communists that just don't 'Get It'.
China has also got it's sights set on the Middle East and Africa. They are going to need natural resources like oil, copper, etc. China is not a major threat at the moment, but that can quickly change in a short decade.
You're making a pretty big leap saying that Whole Foods wants to scare you into buying their food, when Whole Goods specifically caters to people with special dietary wants and needs. The price of their food reflects the fact that they make a lot of it themselves, seeing as how if it was generally available, you could buy it anywhere for a more affordable price. Most people aren't glutamate sensitive, but most people aren't allergic to gluten or lactose either.