True. I think the point is more that these companies made no profits while they were independent and then continued to make no profits after they were acquired; thus in retrospect the acquirers must have overpaid.
Except that this line of reasoning assumes that the people who run the acquiring company are morons. This is quite a strong assumption to make without any further evidence. I think neither of us knows enough about HP's fiances to make that claim (I presume you were talking about Opsware).