IMHO, one of the big problems with any kind of mega-merger is that the
organizational effectiveness of a company tends to be inversely proportional
to its size. As a result, when a company tries to do many different things
it tends to do a poor job of all of them. This is a particularly
significant issue in the Microsoft/Intel case, because software engineering
and CPU design are both exceptionally difficult disciplines where relatively
modest mistakes can quickly have a large effect on product quality.
So, I am wondering whether modern economic theory offers any concrete means
of analyzing this kind of concern. Can you offer any basis for predicting
that this sort of problem would or would not become significant?