| They did not merge. They were bought for peanuts. You are misremembering. "Digital was acquired in June 1998 by Compaq, in what was at that time the largest merger in the history of the computer industry. At the time, Compaq was focused on the enterprise market and had recently purchased several other large vendors. Digital was a major player overseas where Compaq had less presence. However, Compaq had little idea what to do with its acquisitions, and soon found itself in financial difficulty of its own. The company subsequently merged with Hewlett-Packard (HP) in May 2002. As of 2007 some of Digital's product lines were still produced under the HP name."[1] The Sun purchase wasn't as big, true. But they had multiple bidders, and sold for $5.6B: "In late 2008, Sun was approached by IBM to discuss a possible merger.[4] At about the same time, Sun also began discussions with another company, widely rumored but unconfirmed to be Hewlett Packard, about a potential acquisition. By March 2009, talks had stalled between Sun and both IBM and the other potential suitor. On April 20, 2009, Sun and Oracle Corporation announced that they had entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle would acquire Sun for $9.50 a share in cash. Net of Sun's cash and debt, this amounted to a $5.6 billion offer from Oracle"[2] These are both excellent of examples of companies that one might argue "failed" in the market place, but were still valuable years after their peak in the market. That is exactly what adventured is saying. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_acquisition_by_Oracle |