DLP deal flow
Posted by Brenon Daly on September 29, 2009
Contact: Brenon Daly, Steve Coplan
When Trustwave recently reached for Vericept, the Chicago-based security services company joined a long list of acquirers of data-loss-prevention (DLP) technology. Over the past three years, we’ve seen roughly a baker’s dozen DLP deals, with the total spending on the transactions hitting $850m, according to our 451 [...]
Long an LBO target, ACS goes to Xerox
Posted by Brenon Daly on September 28, 2009
Contact: Brenon Daly
Finally, Darwin Deason does his deal. The chairman and overwhelmingly largest shareholder of Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) has had the IT services company he founded in 1988 in play for some time now. The firm was approached by an unnamed private equity (PE) shop some four years ago, but [...]
Like Intel, Microsoft buys scraps of parallel-processing startup
Posted by Brenon Daly on September 25, 2009
Contact: John Abbott
Despite a fair bit of talk about how important it is to demystify the art of parallel programming now that multiple cores and threads have become mainstream in x86 computing platforms, the actual level of activity has been surprisingly low. Over the last few years we’ve identified no more than [...]
Solid-state storage market: OEM now, M&A later?
Posted by Brenon Daly on September 24, 2009
Contact: Brenon Daly
As buoyant as the Nasdaq has been so far this year, few stocks can come close to matching the stunning 10-fold rise of STEC Inc. After opening the year at about $4, shares in the maker of solid-state drives (SSDs) inched above $40 earlier this month. Perhaps inevitably, gravity [...]
Correlated markets?
Posted by Brenon Daly on September 23, 2009
Contact: Brenon Daly
To look at the recent performance of the Nasdaq, you’d hardly know that capitalism (as we know it) almost died a year ago. The tech-heavy index was largely unchanged on Wednesday but has posted gains for three straight sessions, having added 9% so far in September. That’s part of a [...]
Goldman regains its Midas touch
Posted by Brenon Daly on September 22, 2009
Contact: Brenon Daly
Goldman Sachs is having a September to remember, after an uncharacteristically quiet run throughout 2009. We noted in our mid-year league table report that Goldman, which topped our annual rankings 2005-07, had slipped to a distant seventh place in the first half of this year. Since the beginning of [...]
Dell-Perot Systems: an expensive Texas tie-up
Posted by Brenon Daly on September 21, 2009
By Brenon Daly
To understand just how richly Dell’s bid values Perot Systems, consider this: the last time shares in the services company traded at the level Dell is paying, Dell’s own long-slumping stock was changing hands above $40. That was back in early 1999, just after Perot Systems went public. (As a [...]
Intuit mints a rich deal
Posted by Karin Kelley on September 18, 2009
Reaching for a new and promising market, the vendor acquired personal finance startup Mint this week at a pre-crash-level premium. What gives?
‘What’s up with Omniture?’
Posted by Brenon Daly on September 17, 2009
Contact: Brenon Daly
It wasn’t quite shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, but an early Tuesday afternoon development at an investment conference concerning Omniture certainly sparked a firestorm of speculation. During the luncheon at ThinkEquity’s 6th Annual Growth Conference in San Francisco, word came out that Omniture had scrapped its presentation, which [...]
M&A market timing at CA
Posted by Brenon Daly on September 15, 2009
Contact: Brenon Daly
After a two-year hiatus that ended last fall, CA Inc has returned to the market with newfound enthusiasm. With the vendor’s purchase on Monday of network performance management provider NetQoS, CA has now inked six acquisitions over the past 12 months. That comes after an extended period (September 2006 [...]