The Digital dilemma
Our new series of six briefs looks at big mergers of the recent past: what was the strategy behind them, and did it work? We start with Compaq’s ill-fated takeover of Digital Equipment, the biggest merger in the history of the computer industry. As companies so often do, Compaq tried to buy a new future. So was the deal bad strategy, or just bad timing?
IT WAS just two and a half years ago, but it seems another age. In January 1998 the king of the business world was Compaq Computer. The Texan giant, the world's largest PC maker, had just overtaken IBM. It had been growing by 30% a year, twice the industry average, and its skyrocketing share price had made more millionaires in Houston than oil ever did.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “The Digital dilemma”
Briefing July 22nd 2000
From the July 22nd 2000 edition
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