Security → Re: Microsoft gobbles up AV ground

Thanks for that TF download link.

I had forgotten than Symantec had bought PC Tools.

Actually it is the second time that Symantec has bought PC Tools. They bought PC Tools the first time ~1994 when they bought Central Point Software (and they almost immediately shutdown that product because it made their Norton Utilities look wimpy in comparison).
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC ··· tware%29

Corporate arithmetic continues to puzzle me at times. Why buy out a small competitor (among many other similar competitors), just to extinguish their products? If they're small, they don't represent that big a chunk of market share to start with, only a part of which might even turn to your product if they disappear. I can understand a corporation's desire to buy out certain patents a little company might own to enhance their own portfolio or to bludgeon competitors with... but how much can those really be worth to justify buying the whole operation? Ditto for the idea of buying a little company for its "talent"... talent can (and does) simply migrate after-the-sale to somebody else. Yet, again and again, this same thing seems to happen... little outfits (with decent products) gobbled up and any trace of their products simply evaporating.

In some cases, the product being bought (and discarded) is so superior to the purchaser's product, that they simply want to make it go away and stop making their own product look so bad.

But why not simply re-brand the bought product line to their own name and go on with that? If it's truly better, that should give them a real marketplace boost. Like I said, I can't figure out the arithmetic.

I always assumed they were after a certain tech or patent contained in the smaller company's product to include in their own.

Actually that does sometimes happen, just not very often. I used to work for a mainframe computer manufacturer who bought out several other manufacturer's product lines, and did indeed rebrand them and use them as the basis for new products rather than simply taking a competitor's product off the market. Of course in the long run it did not help since the dinosaurs died anyway.

That same company (after they were bought by one of their European subsidiaries) also bought a well known manufacturer of quality PCs and PC based servers, as well as a manufacturer of mass produced low cost PCs. They started out rebranding the quality PCs, but eventually switched to the cheaper models and phased out the quality products. That did not turn out very well either. I saw what was happening and managed to leave with a small golden parachute a couple of years before that company totally disappeared.

In some cases that maybe the plan but as we all know things don't always go according to plan.

About 10 years ago I worked for a small high-tech company that was in a niche market. Although our products were highly regarded (at the time) there was a similarly sized company that was a thorn in our side. Through a number of circumstances we were able to purchase that competitor. The intent, at least the public one given by management, was to keep the acquisition essentially as it was. I figured that was a lie or at least wishful thinking and that turned out to be true.

Our company, because we owned that former competitor, tried to make them "conform" to our standards and systems. That pissed them off. We then (and I was one assigned to this task) copied their IP since it was now ours. That involved copying HD's (on the sly when possible), copying documents etc. That pissed them off even more.

To cut a long story short most of the employees left--many in a huff--leaving us with the physical stuff but with little knowledge of their products' operation and manufacturing processes. Being a small company ourselves many of us were assigned to figure all that stuff out. We essentially had to reverse engineer their stuff. Sucked time and resources like a vacuum.

After about a year my company essentially dumped large parts of the ex-competitors product line. They kept certain brand-names and supported some stuff out in the field but in effect that company was gone.

Maybe that was the intent all along but a huge amount of money and time was wasted if that was so. My guess is that they bit off more than they could chew.

BTW a few years later I was laid-off and a few weeks after that the President was fired along with a bunch of management. Last time I checked they still existed but in another, but similar, line of business.

The point of this? My bet is that some companies have gone through this before. Its easier just to shut them down (i.e. out of the market) rather than trying to keep them going.