Actually, the big news from this story is the tragic squandering of an opportunity to create a company called "Random Penguin".
Embedded Link
Penguin and Random House to combine, creating the world’s leading trade publisher | The Passive Voice
From the Pearson website: Pearson and Bertelsmann today announce an agreement to create the world’s leading consumer publishing organisation by combining Penguin and Random House. The combination brin…
Google+: View post on Google+
63 view(s)
And since the new 'venture' will be called Penguin Random House, we'll lose the ability to have wonderful conversations like this:
@maureenjohnson:
ME: It's CALLED Random House. It's a publisher.
FEDEX: Yeah, but we can't send to a random house. It needs an address.
ME: It HAS one.
Heh. Yup.