Twitter无人问津，或将成为僵尸公司

“Twitter接下来会怎样？”

前几天有人这样问我。此前，Salesforce已公开表示放弃收购这家社交网络先驱。和并购传闻带来的高点相比，Twitter的股价已下跌30%。据说谷歌、迪士尼和微软也都无意收购。我的第一反应是：“哦，很简单，它会变成一家僵尸公司。”

僵尸公司是指人们曾经感兴趣但已加入“行尸走肉”行列的公司。软件厂商赛贝斯就当过多年僵尸，后来被SAP收购。随着旗下著名的智能手机停产，曾名为Research in Motion的黑莓公司最近也步入“僵尸”之列。号称“社交”游戏公司的Zynga已在黑暗中苦苦摸索四年，然而该公司的房地产远比它发布热门游戏的前景更值钱。

Twitter市值仍达120亿美元，但变“僵尸”已不可避免。尽管Twitter账面上亏损严重，但这家公司的确产生了少量现金收入。亏损的原因为非现金支出——Twitter拿出了相当于30%收入给员工发放股份。小现金流，再加上规模巨大的资产负债表意味着Twitter还能撑几年。但没有增长，也不会盈利。Twitter用收入发股份，遵循的是令硅谷备受折磨的“第二十二条军规”——不发股份就留不住人才，增长前景只会更加渺茫。

《财富》杂志高级撰稿人马修·英格拉姆披露，一位对冲基金经理认为，应该由一家善于削减成本的私募股权基金收购Twitter。但这似乎不太可能，因为轻资产型科技公司一般不会甘心任由财务高手折腾。另一方面，云软件领军公司Salesforce首席执行官马克·贝尼奥夫此前迫切希望收购，投资者反对也不是没理由。他们认为收购Twitter后会影响财务状况，毕竟Salesforce自己还没盈利。

成为僵尸肯定不好玩，但是有些企业是可以这样的状态维持很长时间的。

先把这星期活过去吧。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

“What happens next to Twitter?”

That’s the question someone asked me the other day, after Salesforce.com CRM publicly swore off a bid to buy the pioneering messaging company. Twitter’s stock had fallen 30% from the peak of its deal-rumor-fueled high. Google ,Disney , and Microsoft MSFT were all said to be uninterested as well. My immediate response: “Oh, that’s easy: It becomes a zombie.”

A zombie is a company that people once were interested in that joins the ranks of walking dead. Software maker Sybase was a zombie for years before SAP SAP 0.26% finally bought it. Blackberry BBRY -1.60% , once known as Research in Motion, recently recognized its zombie status by discontinuing the product line that made it famous, smartphones. Zynga ZNGA -2.46% , the “social” gaming company, has groped in the dark for four years now, more highly prized for its real estate than its prospects to release hit games.

Its rich valuation of $12 billion notwithstanding, Twitter is on its way to zombiehood. Though Twitter TWTR -0.06% loses gobs of money, it does generate a small amount of cash. Its losses are a result of spending an amount equal to 30% of revenues on equity grants to its employees, a non-cash expense. The small cash flow plus an ample balance sheet mean Twitter could last for years. Yet it isn’t growing and doesn’t earn money. More, its compensation expense is a Silicon Valley-inflicted Catch-22: Without the stock grants it won’t be able to attract talent, further diminishing its growth prospects.

Fortune’s Mathew Ingram surfaced a hedge fund manager who thinks Twitter is ripe for buyout by a cost-cutting private-equity firm. That seems unlikely as asset-light tech firms don’t lend themselves well to financial engineering. There’s a reason, after all, that investors in Salesforce opposed the purchase CEO Marc Benioff was keen to make. They saw Twitter’s finances hurting the cloud software leader, which itself isn’t yet profitable.

Being a zombie can’t be fun. But the living dead tend to stay that way for a long time.

Have a lively week.