Study after study of past merger waves has shown that two of every three deals have not worked; the only winners are the shareholders of the acquired firm, who sell their company for more than it is really worth.In the past, buyers have justified deals by citing questionable synergies (remember the hardware-software argument that lured Sony and Matsushita into Hollywood).
Extension Software's argument is that it did nothing more than sell a deck of cards to someone in Las Vegas.
However, it is also not the case that by focusing on "particular effects which [he] can clearly see (such as new aesthetics in motion graphics) and details of software," his arguments necessarily escape the value judgments inherent in a more philosophical approach.
Mr. Ellison is by no means the only software executive making that argument.
In its brief, the Business Software Alliance said that the argument that software licenses were shielded from first-sale rights "does not provide any meaningful comfort".
Microsoft used the rapid change of the new software industry as an argument to suggest that Judge Jackson should view the case differently than he might have viewed a case against a smokestack company, said Charles J. Goetz, an expert on antitrust law at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Andreessen was basically repeating his famous argument that "software is eating the world".
Absent the influence of economic deprivation on the prevalence of spam/spambots, there is no argument for software subsidies in low-income markets as a solution to botnets.
This is a confusing argument since software is such a broad investment category and one that encompasses the very same sectors he would like to see improved.
You can make a pretty good argument that software has contributed to the current junky state of the tax code by allowing Congress to pile on complex provisions (requiring lots of new worksheets, forms and calculations) without facing a full-scale taxpayer revolt.
In the same line of argument, the software developed by Faception can actually prove quite useful in tracking down and profiling specific individuals in public areas such as airports, based on their affinity to crime.
