"Consider the bargaining situation between Compaq Computer Corporation and the California businessman who owned the Internet address www.altavista.com. Compaq, which had recently taken over Digital Equipment Corporation, wanted to use this man's address for Digital's Internet search engine, which at that time had the address www.altavista.digital.com. Compaq and the businessman apparently negotiated long and hard during the summer of 1998 over the selling price for the latter's address.
Although the businessman was the "smaller" player in this game, the final agreement appeared to entail a $3.35 million price tag for the Web address in question. Compaq confirmed the purchase in August and began using the address in September but refused to divulge any of the financial details of the settlement.
Given this information, comment on the likely values of the BATNAs for these two players, their relative bargaining strengths and levels of impatience, and whether an efficient outcome appears to have been attained in this game."