In January 1999, Beny Alagem, founder of Packard Bell, acquired a license for the AST name. Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research, concurred. Nampa, Idaho-based Micron ranked No. 12 in U.S. PC sales last year, with 1.3 percent market share, according to Dataquest . In terms of worldwide sales, Micron ranked No. 18, with 0.5 percent share. The aversion to acquisitions comes from the nature of PCs themselves.
Computers made by one company are generally similar to PCs from another.
By purchasing a smaller PC company, a larger company is mostly acquiring only the customer base. By and large, the consolidation should happen the old-fashioned way, by gaining market share. Instead, Micron is selling it to an undisclosed investment group, which will streamline operations and peddle the division to other buyers. Typically, this is even less efficient than a straight merger. Maybe there is a Japanese consortium that wants to buy them, but getting into the U.S. market would be a difficult proposition.