from sobeit on another board
The idea that somebody would bid its highest price for a company at the off defies anybody who goes to an auction and makes a first bids of £1,000 for something they could buy for £100. That does not make sense.
As you note, the deals Autonomy made were well and truly agreed before the news hit the papers and the internet. But look at the facts with MIVA. Bishop, the original founder of MIVA, resigned as President and CMO on 5th August 2008 "to pursue other interests". When he merged Espotting with FindWhat in 2003, The company was then worth $185m.
He has agreed to stay on the board for one year as a non-functioning director. On 8th August 2008, Blinkx puts in an offer for MIVA. What does that tell you? Bishop probably fell out with the current board and is going to do a switch to Blinkx and wants MIVA to follow suit? Probably. After all, he was the original supporter of the Blinkx arrangement with MIVA.
As for the Google deal that runs out in December 2008, that was only a facility to rub the noses of Yahoo in the proverbial. Yahoo sued MIVA for breach of copyright and MIVA had to pay them $8m and other costs relating to the court case. I presume what Blinkx plans is it to replace Google when the deal is over. After all, Google cannot supply to MIVA what Blinkx can and Blinkx can most certainly do it better when it comes to video.
Finally, what is the clincher for Blinkx. It is the same old thing that they are using 50 people to run a company providing video search to the internet whereas Google as 16,000 supplying its own search to the internet. As anybody will tell you, when you need to improve your cashflow get rid of the people. MIVA have already intimated that they are going to "restructure" by losing 15% and getting rid of Italy - well, that will be a bonus for a start. But perhaps Blinkx, who claim they can automate the whole process might be able to get rid of 40% of the people, making a killing on cost savings and bring even more to bottom line.
As stormin says, Monday could be a very interesting day.
