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August 26, 2008

Farewell EDS


I previously blogged early this year that it was going to be An Interesting Year Of Change To Come. At the time I wrote:

I can't help but notice the pendulum swing that's happening and I advise everyone to seek knowledge and apply it to your own personal situation. It seems that change is in the air again ( as it always is ) and it smells like recession driven merger and consolidation. Just about every industry that I've been in is seeing a lot of activity in this area and a few minutes ago I found out that I've been `sold` once again.


At the time, I had worked for a private company (Hart InterCivic) which was sold to a public company (Manatron) which was then sold back to another private company (TCB) who just happened to have also bought a software division (InstallShield) from another public company ( Macrovision ) to form a new company (Acresso). Then there was another private company I worked for ( Austin Information Systems ) which aquired private equity to become another company ( Overwatch Systems ) and finally sold to a public company ( Textron ). I didn't stick around for that deal to finish though.


Add in some contracting agencies, dot bombs and airlines ( which almost merged ) and my work history becomes somewhat confusing. Ohwell, at least there will always be a United States Marine Corps! Red and Gold baby, forget purple.

Anyways back to my original reason for posting. Today HP closes on the EDS deal for some $13.9 billion USD.

Wow. There were always rumors of a sale when I worked there (1996-1999,2000-2005) but today is finally the day. I always liked the teams I worked on for EDS but the company as a whole never really seemed like a real winner as evidenced by their really low profit margins over the year.

Well I yanked my 401K out last year and here's hoping that my pension fares well.

Farewel, EDS. You opened a world of opportunity for a young former Marine. I learned a lot from you and this eagle will miss you.

2 comments:

Colby Ringeisen said...

Did you really just blog "former Marine"? I thought there was no such thing?

Christopher Painter said...

There are former Marines, there just aren't Ex-Marines.(With the exception of Charles Whitman.)