The Silence Is Deafening: Customers React to Dialog Sale

摘要

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If a major online search service is sold to a major content company and no customers comment, does the sale make a difference? I am, of course, referring to the March 23, 2000 announcement that The Dialog Corporation plans to sell its Information Services Division (ISD) to The Thomson Corporation for $275 million. Compare these numbers to the $420 million M.A.I.D paid Knight-Ridder (which doesn't include whatever Profound was valued at) and the $3.4 billion Thomson paid for West.