Michael Gracie

There were a few M&A deals in the security space during 2006. If bankers have their way, we’ll see an acceleration of deal activity in 2007. Why else would analysts be floating such an idea?

First, ignore some existing laws. Second, grease the lawmakers. Third, pull investigators pants down to their knees just as they start running after the problem. What do you get after that? According to some high profile attorneys, you get anti-competitive telco mergers.

How does the government fund these shenanigans, and ensure their telco buddies can stay on the public dole? Uh, they tax the competition.

For a merger to work, the whole has to wind up greater than the sum of the parts. A while back I pondered whether the swathe of telco mergers would make things better. I couldn’t come up with an answer.

Someone else now asks the same questions:

“How would they be able to take, in each case, two companies with already broken processes and mediocre customer support and successfully merge them? How could they continue to provide me with the support I need to keep my company’s networks functioning as they need to in this age of the bandwidth junkie?”

What’s a telecomm manager’s answer? The telcos can’t.