4 ms·
I never understand the logic behind acquire-and-shutdown process. Like Google's last decade of shopping and killing spree, not long ago Yahoo bought Astrid and
by est 13y ago
I never understand the logic behind acquire-and-shutdown process. Like Google's last decade of shopping and killing spree, not long ago Yahoo bought Astrid and shutdown million users. Are there any significant business reasoning I am missing?
- samweinberg 13y agoWhen a company acquires another and then shuts it down, the reasoning usually has something to do with intellectual properties or acqui-hiring the employees.
- chiph 13y agoOr buying the customer base, if they think the customers can be moved to their platform.
- redthrowaway 13y agoExcept in this case, they laid everyone off. Also, Zynga doesn't seem all that interested in acquiring IP. I imagine this was just a fuck up on their part.
- rmc 13y agoThey're keeping Draw Something
- meowface 13y agoIf they are, that really seems like a nasty move. Buy a company, then shut down all their products and services, fire all of them, then keep all of their IP and ensure they can't use it again? I suppose it's not exactly theft, since they got paid something up front, but it's still unfortunate.
- workbench 13y agoThey didn't expect Draw Something to drop off so much faster than their usual games. Probably didn't understand that Draw Something isn't even a game when you think about it, so didn't really have a competitive angle and became tiresome quickly.
- angryasian 13y agoTo remove another competitor from the market
- DarkStar851 13y agoThat would be considered illegal by US trade laws if it could be proven or was sufficiently argumented. Unfortuantely I don't believe the courts would accept a plea case after the aquisition had gone through. The big mobile carriers get into this sort of fight a lot though.
- dspillett 13y ago> That would be considered illegal by US trade laws if it could be proven or was sufficiently argumented. But there are many other explanations which (while not as likely in the opinions of many observers) would at very least create a large slice of "reasonable doubt" (and occasionally actually be true!).
- DarkStar851 13y agoThat's a fair point, I think most courts would consider it an acceptable buyout within reasonable doubt, largely because of the rest of the huge competition in this market and the previous owners accepting the deal.
- devindotcom 13y agoYeah, it'd be illegal unless you were to truly value these innovators as potential contributors and then just not give a shit until this potentially powerful and creative company (that agreed to the sale of course) is a distant memory.
- shiike 13y agoThe current Zynga team has another higher priority (revitalize its business in some way.) and rather than spending time to negotiate the buy-back deal, I guess they just chose to shut the service down for time and resource saving. It's a typical nature for a large company who always optimizes their operation for priority.. If you really love your product, the best and only way is not to sell.