I'm an ex-Yale employee from a dealership here in my town in NC and i've seen this comming for many years.
They sent me for factory training on the S.E.M controls in thier greenville plant here in NC and much to my amazement i witnessed
Hyster and Yale occupying the same building (split down the middle) and thier assembly lines were pushing
out Hysters and Yales side by side. Of course this was back when most of us noticed that thier "like designs"
were becomming more obvious as thier newer models were emerging each year or so.

So to me this is old news, it was only a matter of time before this became necessary. Thanks to the failing economy
there are many companies scrambling to survive by merging, but honestly i think there is more to this.
I think trying to gain marketshare is thier main goal and by merging they stand to gain a few points IMO ;)

Presently i work for a Cat dealership in the same town and Cat and Mitsubitshi have done the same exact thing.
So this seems to be a trend?
Obviously ;)

Welcome to the new stage in our evolution of survival!