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Technology vendors have been turning up the volume on acquisitions in the past month or two, with several unexpected developments. For instance, Intel’s buy of McAfee was a surprise to many because of the different markets the companies have played in. And HP and Dell’s bidding war to win 3Par surprised many with how heated it became and how high the bidding got.
Just look at Oracle. It’s bought Sun Microsystems, Convergin, AmberPoint, Phase Forward and Secerno just during 2010. And then there’s Oracle’s “acquisition” of ex-HP CEO Mark Hurd. Offering Hurd the promise of a big payday and the chance to work with his buddy Larry Ellison.
And now that Hurd’s onboard at Oracle as president reporting to Larry Ellison, will Hurd influence sorts of acquisitions it is looking at? If Hurd is in charge, which companies is he likely to go after to fortify his new employer’s market position?
The folks over at Software Advice, which works in the ERP space, among others, think that Hurd will most likely go after an IT services firm as a target in the relatively near future. After all, under Hurd HP acquired IT services firm EDS. Hurd’s move there followed IBM’s purchase of PwC Consulting, the global management consulting and technology services unit of PricewaterhouseCoopers. And since then Dell has acquired Perot Systems and Xerox has acquired Affiliated Computer Services (ACS). If you want to play in the big enterprise consulting services space, it seems like you need to buy an IT services and consulting firm. Software Advice suggests CapGemini might be a good bet, but there are others as well, they say, including Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, Accenture, Unisys and Cognizant.
What do you think? Have these services acquisitions helped or harmed channel partners? And who do you think Oracle will acquire next?
