If You Can't Beat Em, Eat Em

Ah, in the "tanked" market of consumer video edit software, sometimes a meal is the better part of valour. So Avid Technology a maker of high-end video editing systems is buying low-end rival Pinnacle Systems Inc. for $462 million. Actually, it's more a stock trade (I'll give you part of mine for one of yours). Why did Avid do this? They have quite a blue-chip clientele, but Pinnacle and others are making inroads on the cheap, nibbling at their bottom end. So think of Pinnacle as protection for the soft underbelly of expensive custom video editing. No, it usually doesn't work, but you gotta do something, right?