When IBM sneezes, its small competitors catch pneumonia, at least that’s the message they seem to be taking in Sunnyvale from the news of the tie-up between Hitachi Ltd and Electronic Data Systems to buy National Advanced Systems: a couple of Amdahl staffers were reportedly selling shares in the company in the wake of the announcement, but the message that the development is bad for Amdahl as well as for IBM doesn’t seem to have filtered through to the market, and despite heavy trading, Amdahl shares on Tuesday night were back where they opened on Monday morning at $18.50.
