As I (and many others) have been speculating, Tech M&A is most definitely back.
$GOOG is, as expected, very active, acquiring mobile advertising provider AdMob for $750M as well as Voice over IP (VoIP) provider Gizmo5 for $30M. Neither acquisition opens up any new markets for the company, but deepens and doubles down their presence in mobile and IP telephony.
$ERTS also made a move, acquiring ’social gaming’ startup Playfish – again extending presence in their core (gaming) market.
So what’s next? A couple of interesting predictions from enterprise software guru Ray Wang:
Both deals are quite conceivable and would be game-changers for the acquirers (and acquirees – not to mention their customers).
But, for now at least, it looks like the prevalent strategy is ‘expand and deepen’ rather than ‘enter new markets’.
No game-changers. Yet.
