Technology Mergers and Acquisitions in the Presence of an Installed Base: A Strategic Analysis
研究了竞争性信息技术厂商在存在旧产品用户基础时并购的战略收益，发现搁置旧产品是并购的重要动机，并购可能加速或延缓新产品消费，但总能提高收购方利润并有时最大化社会福利。
We study the strategic benefits of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) when competing information technology vendors sell different generations of the same product with different quality. We assume the new product arrives unexpectedly when an installed base of the old product exists. We show that the combination of consumers’ purchase history and heterogeneity leads to new demand complexity that gives rise to innovative product strategies. We find that shelving the old product is an important motivation for M&A. The acquirer may exercise static or intertemporal price discrimination depending on whether it can exercise upgrade pricing. M&A may speed up or slow down new product consumption, and it can lead to delayed new product introduction in some markets. However, it always increases the acquirer’s profit and can sometimes help maximize social welfare. We discuss relevant managerial and policy implications. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2016.0659 .