[dave_sullivan]

For anyone interested in reading about a scenario like this, the book "barbarians at the gate" is very good.

Here's a question: all these big old companies are in the market for startups that they can buy to fix their business. Why not buy the big old company instead, build the product there, and keep more of the value generated? I think we'll see much more of this over the next few years: PE going after old guard tech cos like yahoo (or amd) OR going after old guard non-tech and automating everything.