Acquisitions like those by Sony Corp of CBS Records and Columbia Pictures have succeeded in persuading gullible Americans that any US company is fair game for Japanese acquisition, to the great benefit of those that want to ramp share prices by putting about rumours: those that take seriously the idea of a Japanese bid for DEC or the latest one, that Hitachi Ltd is considering a move for Motorola Inc is that Sony Corp and Fujitsu Ltd are both to some degree mavericks in Japanese corporate terms, companies like NEC Corp and Hitachi are extremely cautious – it took Hitachi 10 years to come to terms with the idea of taking over National Advanced Systems, a pure marketing company with no political ramifications – and would be highly unlikely to make a hostile bid for a major American company, and that the last time a friendly takeover of a US high-tech company, that of Fairchild Semiconductor by Fujitsu, was mooted, it was barred on national interest grounds and these would almost certainly be invoked in the case of DEC or of Motorola.
