In these times of tight credit, cash is without a doubt king. Or at least a knight, considering how inflation is affecting the cost of the consumables we all buy to live. Nothing demonstrates the power of cash more than the contrast between Rocket Software's failed $69 million attempt to acquire host connectivity and application modernization software maker NetManage, which was launched in December 2007 and withdrawn in March because Rocket Software could not raise the capital it needed, and an a $73.3 million all-cash deal announced today by COBOL and application modernization tool maker Micro Focus International.

Given that Micro Focus is offering $73.3 million in cash to acquire NetManage, which is based on a $7.20 per share offer and which represents a 73 percent premium over the closing price of $4.15 per share on April 30 for NetManage's stock, it seems likely that NetManage's shareholders will be pretty happy about taking the deal. And that will be true despite NetManage's protestations two years ago after Attachmate and WRQ were merged by private equity firms and NetManage spurned a buyer, and after the company's president, chief executive officer, and chairman, Zvi Alon, said in March after Rocket Software withdrew its bid that he continued "to be excited about the opportunities ahead for us as a standalone company and the strong pipeline of new business prospects and product developments in the future." Public companies are always for sale--whether they like it or not--since that is the nature of being a public company. A stock market is just buyers haggling over the price, when you get right down to it.