SoerenS
So Danny, things pretty much turned out exactly as I pointed out to you in the comments of your open letter:"What their official statement reads to me is: "We’re not touching Performics even with a firepoker, until we’ve looked into detail whether there’s any technology or employees worth "assimilating". Then we’ll make an announcement on our intentions, hopefully in early April"."Is an "I-told-you-so" in order? :-P
Danny: Well, I see a couple of reasons why they shouldn’t. But again, I’m definately no corporate merger expert.- Imagine what you would have done if you where an employee of a company, who was told through the press that you company might or might not be sold off. I would start looking for a new job immediately along with several of my colleagues, thus lowering the spinn-off value of the company considerably.- Imagine if you where a customer, who where about to sign a deal with Performics. Then someone released a press release saying that they are looking to sell the company as soon as they aquire it. I definately wouldn’t sign any deals with a company who’s future is uncertain, and this would offcourse also lower the spinn-off value considerably.Now, I don’t know Performics myself, but looking at their company website they do more than the questionable SEO. Google might be considering splitting the company up and THEN selling off the SEO-part, but they have been constricted BY LAW so far to look into this in details.What their official statement reads to me is: "We’re not touching Performics even with a firepoker, until we’ve looked into detail whether there’s any technology or employees worth "assimilating". Then we’ll make an announcement on our intentions, hopefully in early April".But then again, English is only my second language. So I might very well be reading things wrong :-)
I think you guys need to look into what may and may not be communicated during a merger such as this.Take a look at this quote from New York Times:<i>"Google says it has been limited by law from making detailed integration plans with DoubleClick, but by early April it expects to have a plan to cut an unspecified number of jobs in DoubleClick’s U.S. operations and, potentially, overseas."</i>(http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-google-doubleclick-jobs.html) Now, I’m definately no fan of Google myself. And I strongly oppose the EU’s decission in this case. But I don’t go about thinking that I’m better than Google/DoubleClick at what can and should be communicated during such a big merger either.
Story: Google Selling Performics -- Damn!