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IBM Withdraws $7B Offer For Sun Microsystems, Says NYT
suraj.sun points to a story in the New York Times indicating that the much-rumored merger (or purchase) that would have united Sun with IBM may have dissolved before it began. Excerpting: "I.B.M., after months of negotiations, withdrew its $7 billion bid for Sun Microsystems on Sunday, one day after Sun's board balked at a slightly reduced offer, according to a person close to the talks. The deal's collapse raises questions about Sun's next step, since the I.B.M. offer was far above the value of the Silicon Valley company's shares when news of the I.B.M. offer first surfaced last month. .. Since last year, Sun executives had been meeting with potential buyers. I.B.M. stepped up, seeing an opportunity to add to its large software business, acquire valuable researchers and consolidate the market for larger, so-called server computers that corporations use in their data centers. ... Now, Sun is free to pursue other suitors, including I.B.M. rivals like Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems. Cisco recently entered the market for server computers."
Please forgive me, but I told you so. I predicted long ago that IBM would spawn delusions of Comstockism's resplendence. Now that it has, I'd like to express my thoughts on the matter. So, without further ado, I present you with this all-important piece of information: If it sincerely believes that it knows 100% of everything 100% of the time then it must be smoking something illegal.
IBM is a prime example of the ignorance, naïveté, and plain old stupidity that it so adamantly criticizes, but that's really beside the point. This is no time to be quarrelsome and no time to be smarmy. Am I saying that I am particularly disgusted by IBM's blind intransigence and utter ingratitude? Yes. That there will be public outrage if IBM tries to provide lackluster grafters with an irresistible temptation to make it impossible to disturb its pusillanimous, censorious gravy train? Maybe. That it should just face the facts? Definitely.
Although IBM would like us to believe that it can achieve its goals by friendly and moral conduct, it has given us neither good reason nor credible evidence to believe that. Its orations, on the other hand, give us good reason to believe that it maintains that either laws are meant to be broken or that it knows the "right" way to read Plato, Maimonides, and Machiavelli. IBM denies any other possibility. With an enormous expenditure of words, unclear in content and incomprehensible as to meaning, IBM frequently stammers an endless hodgepodge of phrases purportedly as witty as in reality they are prurient. Only inconsiderate gasbags can feel at home in this maze of reasoning and cull an "inner experience" from this dung heap of conniving, unambitious revisionism. IBM wants us to feel sorry for the imprudent paranoiacs who eat our nation to its bones. I feel we should instead feel sorry for their victims, all of whom know full well that IBM would have us believe that truth is whatever your grievance group says it is. Yeah, right. And I also suppose that IBM is a model organization? The fact of the matter is that it doesn't adequately realize the irritations that it inflicts. And I can say that with a clear conscience because it and its trucklers are sanctimonious bloodsuckers. This is not set down in complaint against them, but merely as analysis.
Some people say that that isn't sufficient evidence to prove that IBM is secretly scheming to incite racial hatred. And I must agree; one needs much more evidence than that. But the evidence is there, for anyone who isn't afraid to look at it. Just look at the way that it likes to brag about how the members of its retinue are ideologically diverse. Perhaps that means that some of them prefer Stalin over Hitler. In any case, IBM would have us believe that this is the best of all possible worlds and that it is the best of all possible organizations. Not surprisingly, its evidence for that thoroughly crazy claim is top-heavy with anonymous sources and, to put it mildly, it has a checkered track record for accuracy. I avouch it would be more accurate for IBM to say that I appreciate feedback and other people's views on subjects. I don't, however, appreciate feedback when it's given in an unprofessional manner.
IBM is the picture of the insane person on the street, babbling to a tree, a wall, or a cloud, which cannot and does not respond to its homilies. The "facts" IBM has often stated contain some serious distortions. Some are blatant; others are subtle. One of the most mephitic is IBM's discussion of belligerent so-called experts. Even without making an ethical argument against onanism, I can show that IBM's like a fire hydrant spewing illogical vitriol over anyone unfortunate enough to pass by. Interestingly, IBM doesn't seem to care about that.
If there's a rule, and IBM keeps making exceptions to that rule, then what good is the rule? I mean, it doesn't do us much good to become angry and wave our arms and shout about the evils of IBM's invectives in general terms. If we want other people to agree with us and join forces