M&A: The New Tech Arms Race

I have been wildly intrigued lately  by the volume of mergers and acquisitions going on across the technology landscape.  Whether it’s Facebook buying WhatsApp or some of the other smaller deals (Facebook/Titan Aerospace, Intel/Basis, etc), the amount of money being spent to acquire other companies is nothing short of mind-boggling.  I’m not sure who’s building the business cases or whether this is truly just an old fashioned arms race between the tech giants (Facebook, Google, Amazon, Intel, etc), but it’s fascinating all the same.

They all generally raise some of the same questions though, which I don’t know are being answered in full at the time of the deal:

  • What is the long term strategy for integrating company X and company Y?
  • What is the expected Return on Investment over defined periods (3 year, 5 year, etc)?
  • What happens to the market position of company X+Y when the two sides are joined?
  • What is the transition timeline (if any) for company X and company Y?
  • What is the human capital impact by the deal?
  • What would company X be foregoing if company Y were not in the picture?
  • What is the expectation from a headquarters/workplace setting standpoint in the future?

What do you think?  Is this just a short term trend or more of the “new norm” in the tech space?

Til Next