The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Dart frogs are attractive little fellows, but the brightly-colored amphibians can kill predators that try to eat them. Tenet Healthcare has pulled out many arguments in rejecting a $3.3 billion hostile stock and cash bid from rival hospital chain Community Health Systems. The most unusual imitates the dart frog: our past performance has been so toxic that you’ll be sorry if you buy us.

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

NEW YORK — Fortune Brands has found an antidote for its poison pill. The odd combination of liquor, golf clubs and faucets never made sense. The conglomerate structure also dissuaded specialist rivals from making takeover bids. Carving up the company should solve the problem.

Pfizer’s boss Jeffrey Kindler has quit, saying he is tired—perhaps of impatient investors calling for him to step down. Kindler made one sensible big deal and some mistakes, but shareholders lost about 20 percent of their investment during his 4-1/2 year tenure. Even so, whether he jumped or was pushed it’s far too early to judge him.

The problem is pharma’s glacial timescale. Drug companies pour billions into research and development, yet the fruits aren’t evident for years. Pfizer’s most pressing concern is replacing revenue which will be lost in 2011 when patent protection expires on the company’s high cholesterol treatment Lipitor, which brought in $11 billion of revenue in 2009. The drug was first synthesized in 1985 by a company swallowed by Pfizer in 2000. And the research that led to this class of drugs was performed by a Japanese company in the early 1970s.

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

NEW YORK — Google’s problems in antitrust are intensifying, and it’s likely to be a long slog. The European Commission is examining whether Google is using its dominance in online search to unfairly extend its reach into related areas the way Microsoft once did. The probe is auspiciously timed: Google is contemplating a near-$6 billion bid to enter the e-coupon business by buying Groupon, according to news reports.

It’s party time in Redwood Shores, California. Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, got his vindication, and then some, when an Oakland jury ruled that German competitor SAP should pay $1.3 billion in damages after admitting copyright infringements.

The sum may be reduced on appeal, and SAP may not have to pay for another couple of years. But the damage will be felt beyond the German group’s bottom line, as the verdict’s reputational impact hurts its business.

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Motorola promised in early 2008 to break itself up under pressure from activists. It’s taken a long while — but come January that day finally arrives. Given the pace of Motorola’s restructuring, that sounds like plenty of time for investors to have ferreted out hidden treasure. Yet there’s still a gap between Motorola’s current and break-up value.

Apple’s iPod may have been the best thing to happen to music since The Beatles. But the two icons have never officially collaborated, as the Fab Four remained one of the last downloading holdouts. Four decades after the band broke up and seven years since Apple launched its iTunes music store, the long and winding road has finally reached its digital destination.

The trademark litigation that held up the move won’t suppress the hype of the overdue migration. Apple boss Steve Jobs is among the band’s legions of fans of all ages. And since his company uses music, movies and software mainly as a way to attract consumers to buy its gadgets, The Beatles proved a noticeable absence.

“Call of Duty” dropped an A-bomb on the video game business this week. The $360 million first-day sales debut for the game’s “Black Ops” sequel set a new record. Producer Activision may deserve a medal. But the industry fallout looks deadly. Development costs are skyrocketing as packaged game sales shrink. For firms selling to hardcore gamers, it’s ever more about producing blockbusters — and taking bigger risks.

Designing a game for a console in the early 1990s cost between $50,000 and $400,000. Creating one today costs some $20 million, according to Deutsche Bank research. Make a game for multiple platforms — from Xbox to Wii to PlayStation — and the total cost is even higher. Moreover, users pick their purchases carefully because packaged games are expensive. That drives the industry to produce mega-hits that can produce sequels.

If the Canadian government thinks a hole in the ground is a national gem, TMX, the group that operates the Toronto Stock Exchange, probably qualifies as a diamond. As a result, it is likely to sit out further sector consolidation. That’s a shame — selling to a foreign buyer might help both the exchange and Canada itself.

Canada’s rejection Wednesday of BHP’s $39 billion bid for fertilizer producer Potash Corp of Saskatchewan under the Investment Canada Act has injected uncertainty into foreign bids for any sizable companies, particularly resource groups, in the country. For the moment the government may legally be unable to explain the decision while BHP considers an appeal, but it smacks of protectionism.