What do you think about an Emerson takeover?

[pallen]

First time this morning I'm hearing about Emerson Electric wanting to buy NI. 

I'm still informing myself on the situation.  But I'm curious what other LabVIEW developers think of the situation.  

[crossrulz]

I'm currently of the opinion that it will not happen.  Either way, I'm not worried about it.  I have enough other drama happening in my life.

[Mads]

It makes me worry even more about the future of LabVIEW. We rely on LabVIEW and sbRIOs and with a new owner I am afraid they could be axed of left to dwindle.

If Emerson wanted to invest in LabVIEW and RnD that would be great, but from what I can tell they mainly want to squeeze as much profit out of NI as possible and (with a short-term view) that seems to mean cutting spending on RnD (They have criticized NI for spending too much on RnD. They could of course be right in that NI is not getting enough out of their investment, the NXG project e.g. looked bad from the get go and should have been handled better, but until proven wrong I suspect better project management is not what they are planning for...).

[Mads]

No news for quite some time about this...or have you seen anything?

Perhaps everyone held their breath and passed out?😬

[pallen]

It doesn't seem that much has changed.  

From what I read, Emerson is still pursuing the purchase. 

https://www.printedelectronicsnow.com/contents/view_breaking-news/2023-02-23/emerson-provides-an-upd...

Lots of speculation.  But not sure where things are going. 

Hmm....seems kinda familiar lately.   

[mantoles]

Emerson traditionally buys companies and does not change them.  they become part of their portfolio.  they see an opportunity to make the business more profitable.  I don't expect much change if any for the better except for some executives that may have to go. I also don't expect product offerings to change but over time they will grow to meet Emerson's growth plans 

[_TestMan_]

Emerson probably is better option for us NI users than some third party financial company.

[Mads]

My experience is that when Emerson buys a company they do change them; they (like many others) look for ways to reduce costs by outsourcing/relocate production e.g. and remove parts of the portfolio that they do not see as profitable enough. The risk with this is that they typically do not know enough about the niches of that business and the internals of the company (product and people-inter-dependencies, culture etc.) to make the right decisions.

In one case they relocated production of highly specialized components to low-cost alternatives with little know-how from the target business, and hurt their relationship with customers that expected continuity and higher quality. In such turbulent processes you typically also lose key personnel and talent (no way back...).

Heck, even NI does not seem to fully recognize how fundamental LabVIEW, and the relationship they used to have with their customers (not relying on distributors) is to their own success. Shifting focus towards what on paper/isolated looks like the more profitable parts of their business they might still have success and be happy, but unwittingly lose what could have become much greater.

[Mads]

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/national-instruments-picks-fortive-keysight-challengers-emerso...

[Intaris]

Ugh, Keysight?

Aren't they more likely to can LabVIEW entirely in favour of their own software?

Really tangential and weird story: I actually played a round of golf with former Agilent CEO (Agilent and Keysight are both spin-offs of the old HP) Bill Sullivan, and his mood got all cranky as soon as I mentioned LabVIEW. There's still animosity towards NI and LabVIEW in particular from way back. I don't have faith that Keysight are particularly interested in nurturing LabVIEW at all.

But this is completely my own personal opinion based on my own personal interactions I have had.