A Quick Look at Technology Acquisitions in 2008
By Elizabeth Millard | Posted 2008-02-25
Tech
companies start the year with an M&A push, but Microsoft could eclipse them
all.
The
progressively softening economy makes good fodder for op-ed columnists, but it
doesn't seem to be affecting the always-lively mergers and acquisitions
activity seen in the technology arena. People may not be buying houses anymore,
but companies are sure keen on buying each other.
After a
strong M&A year in 2007,
the first few months of 2008 show that the trend hasn't abated quite yet. As an
example of the pace of deals, there have been at least 35 mergers and
acquisitions for venture capital-based technology companies so far in the past
two months, noted Adam Wade, at Dow Jones Financial Information Services.
"Today's
market is very similar to what we say in 2003 and 2004, when more companies
were acquired, but for lower prices," Wade says.
Notable
deals in the last two months have included: Sun snapping up desktop
virtualization company Innotek;
"The
last 12 to 18 months has been torrid," says Charles King, president and
principal analyst at Pund-IT. "The shifts in corporate tax law under the
Bush administration have made life profitable for many corporations, and the
ones doing well have been sitting on a lot of money. And now they want to spend
it."
Especially
big is the announcement from Oracle that it will acquire BEA Systems, for about
$8.5 billion, demonstrating Oracle's long-term interest in middleware.
Although
there were a number of sizeable deals in just the first two months of the year,
no company achieved quite the level of sound and fury that Microsoft
demonstrated when it announced on February 1st that it was going after Yahoo.
Considering
a potential proxy fight to replace Yahoo board members, Microsoft's takeover is
likely to be decisive and swift, but it differs significantly from the
behemoth's past deals, notes Rob Helm, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft.
"This
is really an unusual move for Microsoft, both in terms of size of the
acquisition, and the fact that it taps out all the company's available
cash," he says. "It's not organized like any other kind of Microsoft
deal."
Also
unusual is the buy itself, he adds. In the past, Microsoft has purchased
software companies like
"In
the tech world, it's fairly common to see large acquisitions like
As if to
prove the point, Yahoo made its own acquisition announcement, just a day after
rejecting Microsoft's initial offer. The company plans to spend $160 million on
Maven Networks, a developer of inventory management and reporting tools, and an
ad engine.
Although
the economy may cause slowdowns in some sectors of technology, some analysts
believe that acquisitions won't be particularly affected. If anything, the
changeover in
"It's
been a kind of unspoken thing, but there could be a large effect on M&A
activity with a new presidential administration," he says, pointing out
that anti-trust actions during the
In
addition to year-end scurrying, the industry could also see continued
consolidation in areas like storage, security, middleware, and online services.
Storage, in particular, has become so complex that it's something of a deal
magnet.
"You
don't just store information anymore, you have to find ways to manage it, and
secure it, and move it around," says Roger Kay, president of research firm
Endpoint Technologies Associates. "That means more companies are entering
the market with little pieces of the puzzle, and bigger companies are acquiring
them to put their services together."
Recently,
the entire industry has seen fewer deals coming from private equity firms than
in the past, which could be beneficial for enterprise application vendors who
wouldn't have to compete with the firms for acquisitions, says Albert Pang, an
analyst at
Hewlett-Packard
is expected to play a more active role in software consolidation, he notes, and
also look for more team-ups in areas like telecom, healthcare, and software as
service vendors. "There are a growing number of mergers and acquisitions
in all software segments," he says. "2008 should be no
exception."
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