Quote from: SteveInWA on January 22, 2018, 09:29:45 PM
I have to agree with RFC3261: you may not be aware of the opinions and assumptions behind your posts, but you are starting off from the position that mergers are almost always bad (completely unfounded) and companies are evil, not interested in customer satisfaction (completely unfounded). So you are making baseless accusations first, then insisting that they be disproved.
This is not much different than saying "The sun isn't going to come up tomorrow. I won't believe anything to the contrary unless you can prove otherwise".
If you would simply read the press release (click the banner at the top of the forum), it clearly states:
Quote
After completion of the deal, Polycom expects to add more cloud-based capabilities and Analog Terminal Adapter solutions to its solutions portfolio. The combination is expected to expand the markets available to Polycom solutions for both the company and its worldwide network of channel partners.
The deal is expected to close early in first quarter of this year.
If the leaders of the two companies posted here, swearing on a stack of virtual bibles, and put one billion dollars in escrow, would you then trust them? I suspect not.
I promise, I'm not trying to be a downer here - just trying to be realistic. I do appreciate your optimism and in fact, I want to be wrong and perhaps this deal will be a historical first. As a consumer, I value OBI for being out of sight and out of mind. No fees. No worries. In essence, today's model you pay a fair upfront cost for the hardware and set and forget.
I assume we're both in the same boat of wanting one less product playing the "gotcha" game of chess with cost, service or features, so thus my concerns?I actually do not think the vast majority of companies or people for that matter are evil. I do however think leaders and companies make bad decisions and then are forced to recover, which is exponentially costly and not linear as one might assume. How companies recover is the sum total of the concerns I've expressed. Not evil, but pun intended a "necessary evil" to cover bad decision making.
I'll explain.
Start with the understanding all companies, which Polycom is, are in business to make money, as they should. That in and of itself is not a bad thing and that's capitalism. Understand no one in their right mind expends the human and financial capital to initiate an acquisition with the intent to take on and bear incremental cost (net of revenue) long term.
There is always a financial benefit and payback period associated with these type of deals. M&A at the highest level is solely for financial gain, which may be derived from acquiring a combination of human, intellectual and physical capital as part of the deal. People. Paper. Product.
The marketing magic puff piece you reference (press release) I would pay zero mind to. I highly doubt this is about adding analog POTS equipment as quoted. Polycom is already one of the leaders in this space and if memory serves, that is the playground is which they stated. Adding cloud capabilities, perhaps.
So, in my experience, being on multiple ends of M&A activity (living through it, providing decision support for it and being the recipient as a consumer many times over and over) M&A activities are rarely good for the consumer and a crapshoot for the employees.
Should we worry for the next 6 months, probably not. Give it about a year. If financial and deal objectives are missed, then that will likely triggers typical knee jerk changes, which I've over simplify recovery options to illustrate how this could impact us... some options are.... 1) Sell more 2) Borrow more 3) Downsize or "rightsize", 4) Product retirement, which enables you to downsize 5) Addition of monthly fees or.....for the super lazy that which to only push paper .... 6) Outsource part of your operations. Everything is a push and pull and net positive is the game they'll play.
Now, please don't take my word on any of this... You can ask Harvard Business Review or the multiple studies which cite M&A failure rates ....HBR I do think sums it up best... "When a CEO wants to boost corporate performance or jump-start long-term growth, the thought of acquiring another company can be extraordinarily seductive. Indeed, companies spend more than $2 trillion on acquisitions every year.
Yet study after study puts the failure rate of mergers and acquisitions somewhere between 70% and 90%.
https://hbr.org/2011/03/the-big-idea-the-new-ma-playbookSo, to answer your last comment about leaders posting and believing them... I would believe them. Please go back and re-read my post.
It was my specific ask for either OBI or Polycom to put their commitment in writing like many large companies do when M&A is announced. If they state in writing no changes, then.... hallelujah! Case closed. That would be great and this issue and thread would be put to rest. If they say nothing, as is the case in many instances, historical fact and personal experience by default serves as the guide of what to expect.