Monday, July 16, 2012

Lernout & Hauspie's Dragon Systems Purchase: a Horror Story Still Reverberating Today - NYTimes.com

We were all surprised when even Dragon Systems (like most NLP companies at that time) gave up and decided to sell to their biggest competitor, but as this article demonstrates, it wasn't that simple...

Goldman Sachs and a Sale Gone Horribly Awry - NYTimes.com: "The deal, the $580 million sale of a highflying technology company, Dragon Systems, had just been approved by its board and congratulations were being exchanged. But even then, at that moment of celebration, there was a sense that something was amiss.

The chief executive of Dragon had received a congratulatory bottle from the investment bankers representing the acquiring company, a Belgian competitor called Lernout & Hauspie. But he hadn’t heard from Dragon’s own bankers at Goldman Sachs."

'via Blog this'