Biggest company merges ever

[abracadabro]

How you will feel if you see at the morning news that Apple merges Samsung?
Do you think it will one big news (top 10 in the century)?
Thanks

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

Depends on who would be in control. I would be sad if Apple somehow absorbed Samsung.

[Anakso]

I'd hope it meant some huge awesome things were coming, but I'd be pretty sad if they just merged together and stuck with apples business model, which even as an iphone owner. I hate.

[Shakadam]

It couldn't happen, the US/EU etc antitrust and competition laws would kick in and block any merger that would threaten to create an overly dominant entity, in other words a monopoly.

The same laws are blocking, for example, Intel from buying AMD.

[Oogly]

It couldn't happen, the US/EU etc antitrust and competition laws would kick in and block any merger that would threaten to create an overly dominant entity, in other words a monopoly.

The same laws are blocking, for example, Intel from buying AMD.

Not to mention the fact that the OPs original idea of a merger between Apple and Samsung would never happen as both companies (if you could consider them as sentient living entities) absolutely hate each others guts with a passion and would rather burn in hell than merge together.

[alturic]

Not to mention the fact that the OPs original idea of a merger between Apple and Samsung would never happen as both companies (if you could consider them as sentient living entities) absolutely hate each others guts with a passion and would rather burn in hell than merge together.

Money can turn that hate into love real quick.

Truthfully though, this is exactly why I hate the government. I understand laws are there to "protect the consumer", but honestly government has no business being involved with private businesses outside of taxes and thing like that. They should not be able to tell private business yes you can merge, no you cannot, etc.

[Deleted]

This would not and will not happen. I'll give you the reasons why. First of all, antitrust and competition laws. Secondly the companies have so different agendas, and there's a lot of bad blood in between them, and as much as emotions shouldn't affect business, these businesses are in it for the war and I just don't see a merger happen for that reason either.

[bayre]

Money can turn that hate into love real quick.

Truthfully though, this is exactly why I hate the government. I understand laws are there to "protect the consumer", but honestly government has no business being involved with private businesses outside of taxes and thing like that. They should not be able to tell private business yes you can merge, no you cannot, etc.

You sir are the exact sort of person who will never succeed in working in government, not being able to understand that a monopoly is bad for the economy is the single most retarded thing I think I've heard this year.

[abracadabro]

It couldn't happen, the US/EU etc antitrust and competition laws would kick in and block any merger that would threaten to create an overly dominant entity, in other words a monopoly.

The same laws are blocking, for example, Intel from buying AMD.

Dont you think is intel and amd is a bit in different category than apple samsung? Someones can be above laws and apple with samsung first pretendents

[Deleted]

Truthfully though, this is exactly why I hate the government. I understand laws are there to "protect the consumer", but honestly government has no business being involved with private businesses outside of taxes and thing like that. They should not be able to tell private business yes you can merge, no you cannot, etc.

It's there to essentially protect the little man. Admittedly in this particular field there won't be no regular Joes building and selling phones out of their garage, but in general that's why these antitrust laws exist, to give smaller companies even a fighting chance on the market. I'm against that sort of free capitalism that you favour, because the world would be a horrible place without laws to prevent merger monopolies from happening.

Edit; essentially free capitalism is not free at all because of the bully factor and plain old polarization.

[Shakadam]

Truthfully though, this is exactly why I hate the government. I understand laws are there to "protect the consumer", but honestly government has no business being involved with private businesses outside of taxes and thing like that. They should not be able to tell private business yes you can merge, no you cannot, etc.

What? Do you have any idea, at all, how extraordinarily bad that would be for the customers?

In the end you'd sit there with a few mega-corporations completely dominating specific portions of the market, driving the prices way though the roof because they'd have no competition at all. No competition = no innovation. Technological growth would stagnate.
Do you know anything about economics?

[bayre]

To the people saying that bad blood would keep these companies from merging, how wrong you are, don't ever forget that shareholders ultimately have the say in regards to mergers going ahead and managers have a duty to present any offers to their share holders. At the end of the day money and legality drive any decision such as this, assuming the government would ever say it is okay (which they wouldn't) and the synergies were there then absolutely this COULD happen (without looking too deeply I would say there would definitely be potential synergies to make a merger such as this worth looking into, ignoring antitrust and competition laws).

[Shakadam]

Dont you think is intel and amd is a bit in different category than apple samsung? Someones can be above laws and apple with samsung first pretendents

Not really, no . No matter how big they are they still have to oblige by market regulations, if they didn't, they'd simple be banned from selling any of their products.

[alturic]

You sir are the exact sort of person who will never succeed in working in government, not being able to understand that a monopoly is bad for the economy is the single most retarded thing I think I've heard this year.

Oh, I'd be great in politics. I can lie my ass off just as well as any politician can. That's the only requirement, right?

I guess it's me being a business owner that puts my stance on the issue though. :-/

[Deleted]

Large corporations getting a total monopoly in a market is bad. Case in point: Microsoft (not quite as much these days but in the 90's and first half of the 00's they pretty much owned the desktop and laptop OS markets and abused this monopoly repeatedly to kill competition and to force their way to dominant positions in other markets).

[Deleted]

I guess it's me being a business owner that puts my stance on the issue though. :-/

Unless you're a big shareowner in a huuuuuge company this law is there to protect you as well and I hope you see that.

[alturic]

Large corporations getting a total monopoly in a market is bad. Case in point: Microsoft (not quite as much these days but in the 90's and first half of the 00's they pretty much owned the desktop and laptop OS markets and abused this monopoly repeatedly to kill competition and to force their way to dominant positions in other markets).

This is one of the biggest reasons why I don't think government should get involved. Why should the government tell a private business that "No, you can't include this product (which you make, but don't charge for) in your "main" product"?

So, Microsoft get's this big lawsuit, it's decided they need to split the company and then roughly a year and a half later, the DOJ says "Nah, we don't want you to split your company".

Also, I haven't shopped (at a big box store) for PC/Laptop in a while, but did they start selling any macs? Do they sell any mac laptops? I don't mean online, I mean IN the store. If people don't express an interest in a product a store isn't going to promote/sell it.


---------- Post added 2012-11-20 at 06:37 AM ----------

Unless you're a big shareowner in a huuuuuge company this law is there to protect you as well and I hope you see that.

I do have stock in multiple companies (even Apple, and I despise them, don't own any of their products) but my business isn't a public company. My point is that I would defend, to my death, the government telling me how to run my business in terms like this.

If I don't like a product I simply shop elsewhere. If the price isn't justified to me, I shop elsewhere.

[Deleted]

If I don't like a product I simply shop elsewhere. If the price isn't justified to me, I shop elsewhere.

Do you even understand what a monopoly is?

[bayre]

Do you even understand what a monopoly is?

this exactly...

[alturic]

Do you even understand what a monopoly is?

You got to be kidding right? There is some industries where (while sure the start-up cost is heavy) there will ALWAYS be competition. You'd be kidding yourself if you thought Apple and Samsung merging would cause prices to go through the roof. People would choose other products if the price wasn't justified.

You'd be kidding yourself if you thought Apple or Samsung could and would buy up all the phone manufacturers in the world.