Customers Question Tech Industry's Takeover Spree

crimeandpunishment writes: "When it comes to the world's largest technology companies, is bigger better? Maybe for the companies, but maybe not for their customers. Tech companies, which have spent $350 billion buying other companies over the past few years, have marketed their acquisitions as beneficial for their customers, offering them a broader range of products, and making it easier for one-stop shopping. But changes in customer service may be offsetting any benefit. In the words of the chief information officer for a large association, 'When the smaller guys are gobbled up by bigger guys, in theory it's supposed to be better, but in our experience it's been worse.'"

it's not about doing business better

[rev_sanchez]

Takeovers are about reducing competition and increasing market share so the don't need to compete. One serious flaw in capitalism is that companies don't want to compete because it's difficult and generally not very profitable.

Re:Take over

[pspahn]

You could install a rainwater collector...

Just in case anyone cares, it is illegal to collect rain water in Colorado (and probably other mountain states) unless you own the right to do so. I'm not commenting on whether it's a good idea or not, just mentioning it because.

Re:Take over

[Richard Steiner]

I spent over 10 years working in IT for a major airline, and if you think the airlines are fond of operational delays, you're crazy!

Re:Take over

[coaxial]

So why don't they do anything to reduce the chance of delays, such as not scheduling more flights than an airport can actually handle during a given period of time?

You don't understand the problem at all do you?

The problem is that there's no slack in the system. None at all. One of the reasons is because planes have to fly at minimum distances apart while staying on certain FAA defined routes. (e.g. Your nonstop flight from LAX to JFK isn't the Great Circle Route, but rather a series of straight line segments that do not always approximate the Great Circle. Ever wonder why your flight goes over Denver? Now you know.) One plane on one route runs into a headwind, or must divert for storm (and it always happens), and the entire system begins to backup, and stays backed up for hours, just like a slowdown on the the highway.

Free flight [wikipedia.org] might be able to help with this, but that's the problem. Most popular destinations are at capacity. They're not over capacity, they're at it. What you want is for someone to voluntarily cut back service so that service is improved for their competitors. That simply isn't going to happen. Something akin to congestion pricing might help, but that's not the airline's role. That's the airports and the FAA's. In fact. it isn't clear that the airports could even do that, since they lease the gates exclusively to each airline. They're not simply assigned on a first come first serve basis.