4 ms·
>>>"The most successful businesses have an idea for the future that's very different from the present--and that's not fully valued." That is the quote that mat
by mikecane 14y ago
>>>"The most successful businesses have an idea for the future that's very different from the present--and that's not fully valued."
That is the quote that matters.
What if IBM had wanted to buy Apple or Microsoft? Where would we all be now?
- kokey 14y agoPersonally I quite like the idea of IBM buying Microsoft, say, in the early 90s. However, Microsoft was very much about not being IBM, where Google is very much about not being Microsoft, so these are acquisitions that would only have been in a rather weird other dimension.
- tanzam75 14y agoIBM was in no position to buy Microsoft in the early 1990s. That was just when they were in financial trouble from the downturn in the mainframe business. Lou Gerstner took them out of that hole by laying off a lot of people. And, of course, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Steve Ballmer collectively owned a much larger chunk of Microsoft in the early 1990s than they do today. It would've been quite difficult to force through a hostile acquisition.