Change... the motivation

I believe in change... I live on change.. I have realised that its change that drives me... Change has always brought me more good than keeping things same. It is applicable to all walks of life. May it be career, personal, social, you name it and I'll give you an example out of my book of life where change has done me good.
But there are more important aspects to change than change itself. What should change and what should not? How often and when should one change?

What should change and what should not?The question that needs to be answered here is whether you are happy with the current state? Things that you are unhappy about should definitely be changed. The extent of change would vary from case to case. Also noteworthy is the idea that change should always be positive. Example, if you are having relationship issues, it's better to change the situation by mending/fixing it than running away from it. Of course there are situations in which mending does not really work. One has to make a judgment call in that case. If you find yourself making that judgment call far too often, you are definitely running away than fixing it.
Or in other words, you are changing too much too often. Which brings me to the second question.
How often and when should we change? Is there a scale that should be followed, Definitely no. Should you change things even when all is looking good. Not really I would say. But there are times when change has not occurred for a long time. Such cases over a long period of time may bigger problems later. Most humans, by nature like not to change if they meet a basic minimum comfort level they have defined for themselves. Over a long period of time such human tendency leads to laziness, taking things for granted and unwillingness to change even though you know tat change is good for you. These are times when change is required for the sake of change. When change should be made coz change is a part of life. You never know when the next change may come by and you would find yourself lost.
So think about the last time you changed something in your life.

Mergers and Acquisitions...

Has anyone noticed the large number of companies worldwide that have been merging?
Take the following facts for example:-

Oracle bought over Peoplesoft. The former was the 3rd largest producer of applications software in the world, while the latter was the 2nd largest application vendor.

Symantec and Veritas merged. That is a merger of the security company and a data warehousing/backup company.

HP and Compaq merged a few years ago.

The 6 largest banks in the US 12 years ago are now the top 2 banks in the US representing assets of trillions of dollars.

These are few of the many examples that exist. Similar mergers have been seen in automobile industry, electronics, computer hardware, insurance etc.

So where does this led to? Is it for the good for the consumers or bad. It’s quite unrealistic to comment on that. But one fact seems to be emerging i.e. most markets are heading into a duopoly throughout the world. Examples

Oracle and Peoplesoft virtually rule the Application development industry. Oracle has its advantage wit one of the biggest Database systems under its arm as well.

HP and IBM seem to be competing on the world's server hardware market though Hp does not seem to be doing well.

IBM and Microsoft focus on the software side of the Servers.

Think of chip manufacturers and all you can think of is Intel and AMD.

The retail computer market is virtually led by Dell worldwide apart from some local manufacturers in some nations.

US banking is led by Citigroup and JPMorgan

Most of these two leaders in each industry are still not satisfied and are looking for other companies for acquisition which may increase their market share. This means that you can see a lot more mergers in the next few years.
So what happens if most industry is dominated by 2 giants? Many would say that you can expect a fierce competition that will eventually benefit the consumer.
The problem lies exactly here, most corporations are smart enough to realize that there is always market for 2 players. Entering a competition would not be in the best interests of either of the company. Most duopoly markets/industry enter a comfort zone where competition is reduced to means of driving the consumer/market rather than driving out the other competition.
But what happens if the 2 leaders were to enter into a fierce battle for the market share? The consumer may benefit in the short term, but will not like it for long. If one of the companies is driven out, you have a monopoly.... and no one likes a monopoly. Some may wonder what are the regulators doing all this while. They will obviously try and save a fallen competition to avoid a monopoly... but do keep in mind that we are talking about companies that have billions or trillions in assets and saving a company that big will definitely burn a big hole in the govt's pockets. eventually it’s the taxpayers who will suffer.

And if you think that this is where the story ends..... that’s not it. Duopoly also minimizes innovation and research. If you look at one of the biggest and the oldest duopoly in the world i.e. the airline industry, you will notice that it has remained it has not evolved in the past few decades. It used to take 6 hours to fly from Singapore to New Delhi 20 years ago and it still takes the same time.

You surely do not want the same to occur to computers where a new computer chip will run at the same speed as the one 20 years old.