Organizations stay competitive and up to date with the never-ending demands of the dynamic markets by procuring newer organizations and joining hands with other firms. Big Organizations merge with other companies to create bigger and stronger entities.
At times, however, the mergers fail due to a lack of foresightedness or unsuccessful implementation. Here is a look at some of the worst mergers of the IT industry that turned out to be disasters
7 Failed IT Mergers
Yahoo and Broadcast.com
The merger between Broadcast.c.com and Yahoo back in 1999 is looked upon as the biggest disaster of the technology business, which did not go well as per the plans for yahoo, which was leading at that time. Yahoo purchased Broadcast.com for 5.7 Billion dollars; however, the streaming website did not bring any profit for the former. The website was slow, and streaming content was limited; thus, soon, its popularity dropped, and it turned out as a bad procurement for Yahoo.
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
Skype and eBay
eBay purchased Skype in 2005, which was a massive 2.5-Billion-dollar deal, and was looked upon as a significant merger at that time; however, it did not turn out well.
eBay did not profit much from Skype until eBay sold it to Microsoft in 2009. It is looked upon as the worst mergers in the history of IT.
Microsoft and Nokia
Nokia was one of the leading mobile phone sellers in the 2000s, and Microsoft and Nokia struck a deal in 2013, where Steve Ballmer purchased Nokia for 7 Billion Dollars.
Nokia strong lost its credibility in the mobile phone market when the newer platforms like Apple and Android became massively successful. It did not do any good for both companies, and in 2015 the deal was struck off.
Yahoo and Tumblr
Yahoo acquired Tumblr the social networking platform in 2015; the CEO Marissa Mayer estimated to give fierce competition to the growing companies like Facebook and Google.
However, the Tumblr deal did not work a great deal for Yahoo and failed to meet its sales targets.
Google and Motorola.
Google bought Motorola, one of the leading phones and tablet markets in 12.5 Billion Dollars. The company wanted to grow its foothold in the phone market and create a strong base for its latest Android OS.
However, Motorola phones did not do much for Google, and finally, Google sold Motorola to Lenovo but kept some of its patents.
HP and Compaq
HP and Compaq were big names in the computer and peripherals business and created a kind of monopoly in the market. The merger happened in 2001, which was looked up as one of the largest deals of the time.
However, it did not turn out to be practically manifest able, and the shares of the companies dropped.
Zynga and OMGPOP
The two companies were the leading developer of social media platform games which could be played on the various apps and platforms. Zynga paid a massive 210 Million dollars to OMGPOP for its game Draw something. However, the deal did not work out great as the popularity of viral game DrawSomething dropped. Zynga shares fell, and the company had to lay off its employees by 18 Percent and later closed the OMGPOP office.
The above mergers turned out unsuccessful and are looked upon as a case study for the IT business professionals.