[tonyedgecombe]

My experience was different, things changed within a couple of months although they were both relatively small companies.

The process was remarkably similar even though they were quite different businesses. Middle management was purged quite quickly, shortly after that all the value creators walked.

In both cases the purchaser ended up with a customer database and some residual support revenue. This may have been their expectation all along, I don't know how the figures looked.

I've read somewhere that most acquisitions don't deliver any value for the acquirer. This is why their share price usually falls on the news.