Customers Question Tech Industry's Takeover Spree 156
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.'"
Take over (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't have your cake and eat it too... (Score:5, Insightful)
If people really want this free-market capitalist monstrosity, then they need to accept the fact that what is best for the *company* always comes first. It really irritates me every time I hear people complaining that a corporation is not thinking of its customers first, or its employees... That is not a corporations job. They're one and only job is to make money for their shareholders.
If you don't like this--as you shouldn't--then the system itself is what needs to be changed. Don't blame the individual companies--they are doing exactly what we have set them up to do. Capitalism itself is the enemy.
Re:Take over (Score:3, Insightful)
When has anything a company has done been for your benefit?
All the time. Sorry that they care about me more than you.
- A Shareholder.
Re:Take over (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies know that customers care about one thing: CHEAP! They shop where they do because of low prices. Sure, everybody says they care about service. But 9/10 times they shop where the prices are lowest. Why would Wal-Mart, Best Buy and every airline bother to care about service when they know they'll make more money selling cheap shit and giving the illusion of a bargain? This requires skimping on any extras such as knowledgeable employees.
In short, consumers are their own worst enemies when it comes to the death of customer service.
Not so much the size (Score:4, Insightful)
Not so much the size as the MO of large IT companies. Create a shell of sales, marketing and consulting while all development, maintenance and support is hollowed out and internally "outsourced" to units in very cheap countries. Even though the quality of all three go down they manage to win bids by in theory offering the same as their competitors for less. In practice it turns out much worse than expect, but that's quickly forgotten during the next round of contracts again with a tight budget.
Re:Take over (Score:2, Insightful)
That computer you're using -- it was made by someone, right? Ok, maybe you assembled it yourself. But someone else made the components. And those people were working for a company.
Or even simpler: You like your paycheck, right?
Re:You can't have your cake and eat it too... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is not a corporations job. They're one and only job is to make money for their shareholders.
I don't see how that statement is a necessary and unavoidable part of capitalism. Capitalism is just an economic system that relies on people freely making economic transactions with each other. It does not inherently require the concept of "shareholders" and even the idea that a corporation needs to have owners is not absolute - a corporation is just a relationship between employees and customers, it does not need to have owners any more than the marriage between a man and his wife needs to somehow be owned by someone. There are lots of (unfortunately, small) businesses that do serve their customers, but we can, and should, support them.
Too much friction (Score:2, Insightful)
Acquisitions aren't even good for shareholders (Score:4, Insightful)
Think about it. It's basically a coin flip that company A buying company B will result in any benefit to the shareholders of A. If shareholders were truly wise, they'd tell management to just give them the cash they would have spent on acquiring a company. They'd make out better in the long run.
Re:You can't have your cake and eat it too... (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea of the corporation is the problem. Capitalism works when one person decides how much risk he wants to undertake in order to gain something. Corporations take much of the risk away by spreading it out among thousands of shareholders. Without that risk, and associated responsibility, corporations can game the system. If companies were run by individuals they would rise and fall like they are supposed to under capitalism. As corporations they can linger on almost indefinitely because they are so resistant to economic damage.
Re:Take over (Score:3, Insightful)
One company buys another for one reason, the second company has something the first company feels they can make money from.
Re:You can't have your cake and eat it too... (Score:5, Insightful)
While the exact form of it (the legal fiction of a limited liability corporation) isn't inherent in capitalism, the argument that this sort of concentration of wealth and ownership is an inherent aspect of capitalism was really the central point of Karl Marx's Capital. The way that most civilized countries prevent that problem from overwhelming them is via the use of democratic government to check the power of owners in favor of everybody else.
The big exception to this has been the United States since 1980. Anyone complaining about excessive taxation or regulation today ought to read up on what US law looked like in 1960 or so.
Re:You can't have your cake and eat it too... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seen a Mike Moore film recently have we?
The clumsy sleight-of-hand that Capitalism: A Love Story tries to pull off, is to frame the issue as Capitalism vs Democracy.
If there was any lesson of the cold war it was that economic systems and political systems are orthogonal. You can have Democratic Socialism. You can have Democratic Capitalism. You can have a Socialist Dictatorship. You can have a Capitalist Dictatorship. Mike Moore wants Democratic Socialism, all the way down to the individual business.. but just saying that would be giving his audience too much credit, so he has to demonize Capitalism and declare that it is incompatible with Democracy. You want Democracy? Oh, well you can't have Capitalism then, so sorry.
Re:Take over (Score:5, Insightful)
You jest!
The only shares I own directly are in my ESPP. My company has about 2B shares outstanding and I currently own about 4000. My company also has about $11B in cash last I heard.
If they cared about shareholders they'd be using that cash to pay dividends, or buying shares back -- more agressively than they claim to be -- to raise the share price.
YMMV.
Re:You can't have your cake and eat it too... (Score:1, Insightful)
That's not a fact, it's a point of view, one usually held by the shareholders. The customers of a company usually feel that the company is there for the customers, and the employees feel that the company is there for the employees.
Fact is that a company needs employees and customers to not exist, and shareholders are actually only necessary when the company has need for capital and no other way of obtaining it.
Really, shareholders are less important than the customers and the employees. Bonds can replace shareholders for a company with good customers and employees.
Re:Take over (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why we seriously need stronger consumer protection including actual enforcement of truth in advertising.
When the one and only thing the consumer can actually be sure of is the price, that naturally becomes the only comparison they will make.
Brand reputation is dead in an age when big name brands rootkit your PC and the badge on the product has nothing to do with who made the product.
Most consumers would much rather buy based on value (quality/price), but with everyone lying about quality that's not feasible.