The EU cleared the proposed merger between IBM and ILOG. From the announcement:
Therefore, the condition regarding receipt of all necessary antitrust clearances, approvals and decisions from the European Union has been fulfilled and there are no remaining regulatory approvals or conditions to which the tender offers are subject other than the minimum tender condition of 66.67% as set forth in the tender offer documents.
In compliance with the timetable published today by the French Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), the tender offer in France will expire on November 24, 2008. The tender offer in the United States will be extended accordingly.
I hate to be a broken record on this (there is an archaic metaphor), but note the URL for the IBM site with information on the tender: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/websphere/ilog_investor_confirmation.html. Websphere (aka the group interested in ILOG’s rules work) continues to play the leading role in the merger from IBM’s side, if the URL is anything to go by.
Perhaps once the tender expires, we can start hearing from IBM/ILOG on how optimization and constraint programming fits into their strategies, since legal limits on their announcements will no longer be in force.
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