08 Feb 2020’s Biggest Enterprise Technology Mergers and Acquisitions
In spite of—and in some cases because of—the pandemic, the enterprise software and services landscape continues growing. Cloud services in particularly are growing rapidly, and M&A continues to be a path for strategic growth. Here are some of the most significant 2020 M&A deals that may affect IT:
- Salesforce purchases Slack for $27.7 billion. SaaS companies are increasingly treating integration with Slack as a key feature. Salesforce will still need to add a few more platform components to be viewed as a full-service alternative to Google Workplace or Microsoft 365.
- Twilio purchases Segment for $3.2 billion. Twilio has consistently worked its way into many companies with its range of APIs. Its acquisition of Segment will expand that reach.
- Ericsson purchases 5G vendor Cradleport for $1 billion. Telecom equipment company primarily sells to telecoms, but CIOs should expect that to shift with the acquisition of Cradlepoint.
- AMD purchases Xilinx for $35 billion. AMD has seen an increased interest in GPU, where Nvidia is its biggest competitor. With the purchase of Altera’s primary competitor, the giant may open new machine learning markets.
- Tibco Software makes biggest acquisition to date. Tibco Software has endeavored to integrate Information Builders into its range of data integration offerings with a purchase valued at almost $1 billion.
- Apptio purchases SaasLicense. The value of this deal is unclear.
- CD&R buys Epicor Software from KKR for $4.7 billion. KKR bought Epicor in 2016 for $3.3 billion, and has now flipped its investment to a $4.7 billion deal with CD&R.
- Analog Devices purchases Maxim Integrated Products for $21 billion. Analog intends to merge its experience with high-frequency radio semiconductors and the ability of Maxim Integrated Products to make data center components. These markets are increasingly aligned as IOT computing moves to the edge of 5G infrastructure.
- BMC Software purchases Compuware. Mainframes continue to form the heart of many businesses, a fact that fueled the merger of these two software modernization specialists.
- Palo Alto Networks acquires CloudGenix. Software-defined-WAN expert CloudGenix acquired Palo Alto Networks in April for $420 million.
- Microsoft acquires Affirmed Networks. Microsoft has affirmed its interests in 5G networks via its purchase of Affirmed Networks.
- Salesforce purchases Vlocity for $1.3 billion. Vlocity is one of Salseforce’s biggest fans, and now it’s part of the company.
- Koch Industries gains full control of Infor. Koch already owned 70 percent of ERP vendor Infor. In February, it agreed to purchase the remainder of the company from Golden Gate Capitol, the founding investor. It intends to turn Infor into a subsidiary operating under its present management team.
