Coping with 'laissez faire but beware'

Coping with 'laissez faire but beware'
Powerware's recent acquisition of Best Power closes out a year of unparalleled mergers in the power products arena, exceeding even our expectations. At the same time, it underscores a more enduring issue and a fairly new one for power: the dual-edged sword of consolidation vs. government involvement.

We're going to see more unions like this-new business dynamics, as it were-and unambiguous ground rules would best be set now to allow companies to make strategic alliances without getting their hands slapped. The power arena has fought too hard securing an identity to take a backward step.

The consensus, and indeed the government, says there's no problem if the integration is horizontal, as opposed to vertical. True enough, historically it's been that a company making widgets was discouraged from buying another doing the same. But the game has shifted a bit today, and too much for my liking.

Invensys, which holds both Powerware and Best Power, as well as Lambda (switching power supplies) and Hawker (batteries), is well-positioned in the horizontal plane. That opens up great possibilities for the industry, including the integrated power supply/UPS we know is coming, a single point of maintenance, increased reliability, and lower cost.

The same holds true in power management, with the Texas Instruments acquisition of Unitrode/Benchmarq and Power Trends putting into play the "one stop shop" (but not, of course, the only shop).

Both mergers will help the consumer. So what's the problem?

Early this week, the national news carried a story on "seeing if government considered the such-and-such merger 'too much' of a monopoly." When big brother gets involved in splitting hairs to that degree in maintaining a "laissez faire but beware" policy, it spells trouble.

Consumers need protection, but the Microsoft case that comes to mind, while demonstrating vertical integration, shows that monopolies, for the lack of a better word, are designed to dominate. It's part and parcel of the American way. So should government be going after Microsoft, or itself, for allowing a company to make the best living it can? Neither.

But we surely must watch the powers that be as they watch the industry so that the power plug is never pulled on us.