Sector IQ

Will sales compensation management firms widen their appeal or fall prey to buyers?

Building on top of sales force automation bases, CRM application vendors continue to extend their reach into adjacent technologies, often subsuming them. That could well be the fate of today's ICM vendors, notably the SMB players.

27 Aug 2008
China Martens

Target IQ

Struggling to sell software, can Vignette sell itself?

Its license revenue this year is likely to sink to the lowest level in nearly a decade. The difficulties come at a time when we've heard Vignette may be in play. Who might be looking – and what might they pay?

25 Aug 2008
Brenon Daly
Kathleen Reidy

Deal Analysis

Broadcom bites on AMD's digital TV offering

Advanced Micro Devices, struggling to streamline the company and return to profitability, has sold its digital TV division to Broadcom for about $193m.

25 Aug 2008
Greg Quick

Deal Analysis

Pingtel gets bounced around again, this time to Nortel

Pingtel, which subsidizes the second-largest open source software based on SIP, was sold to Nortel by Bluesocket, the wireless LAN vendor that bought Pingtel in 2007.

21 Aug 2008
Steve Steinke

Deal Analysis

Salesforce.com strums a new customer service tune as it buys an InStranet

With its fifth purchase, the on-demand CRM pioneer hopes to fill an acknowledged hole in its customer service and support software. Interestingly, InStranet sells on-premise knowledge management apps so it'll be up to Salesforce to turn it SaaSy.

20 Aug 2008
China Martens

Acquirer IQ

More acquisitions ahead for Interwoven as it aims for next tier of ECM

Interwoven has acquired two companies in the past year, one for each of its two core lines of business. We expect more to come from the growing ECM player and examine which areas it is likely to target next.

19 Aug 2008
Kathleen Reidy

Target IQ

AOL's Xdrive is for sale: Who's in line for online backup?

Poor performance and misalignment with AOL's strategy means the online storage specialist AOL picked up three years ago for $30m is to be 'sunset.' Xdrive still plays in a growing market, though, and is already attracting interest.

18 Aug 2008
Simon Robinson

M&A Insight

A happy family or a favorite child?

Caught between building a platform and buying companies, Salesforce.com has focused on AppExchange and Force.com. As a result, M&A is an afterthought, with the SaaS giant averaging just one tiny deal each year.

21 Aug 2008
Brenon Daly
China Martens

M&A Insight

Signing off on a deal

In the latest unsolicited tech deal, Nuance has made a run at struggling mobile vendor Zi Corp. Nuance, which has been building its mobile business, could certainly use the handwriting-recognition software. Not that Zi has done much with it.

20 Aug 2008
Brenon Daly
Chris Hazelton

M&A Insight

VeriSign's half-billion-dollar communications division up for grabs

Newly appointed CEO Jim Bidzos is continuing Bill Roper's aggressive divestiture plan. We believe he is close to shedding the stagnant yet lucrative Communications Services division.

19 Aug 2008
Thomas Rasmussen

M&A Insight

Rise in social networking deals

M&A activity in the social networking space has hit record highs this year, but how long can the trend continue?

18 Aug 2008
Yulitza Peraza
Brenon Daly

M&A Insight

eBay places bid

EBay has failed repeatedly to break into Asia. In true adherence to the phrase 'if you can't beat them, buy them,' eBay is now attempting to acquire its Korean competitor Gmarket. Will this change eBay's fortunes?

15 Aug 2008
Thomas Rasmussen