Top 10 technology company mergers

Just about every month we see some big company snatching up a smaller company. With little to no activity in the IPO space from tech firms, selling to a bigger firm is just about the only way founders and venture capital firms can cash out these days.

Of course, companies could grow the old fashioned way, by servicing their customers and expanding their product portfolios, but if you are trying for quick growth (and who isn't these days?) a merger is the way to go.

However, this approach is not without its problems. A merged company might look good on paper, but there are a whole range of things that need to be sorted out after the paperwork has been signed.

Key to this is staff. The people working for the taken-over company might not take too well to new management, and that means a lot of star talent waiting to be scooped up by rivals.

So, in light of Oracle finalising its mega-deal with Sun we're going to look at the Top 10 most important mergers in the industry. There are lessons here on how to do it right, and how companies get it dramatically wrong.

Honourable mention: Google/DoubleClick
Iain Thomson: Google's acquisition of DoubleClick kicked off a fight that's still affecting the internet industry today. DoubleClick is one of those annoying firms that makes its money selling advertising to the likes of you and me. One could argue that, without firms like DoubleClick, the internet couldn't fund itself, and you'd be right, but the merger raised some interesting issues.

The chief problem was regulatory. Google's acquisition strategy lit up all kinds of red lights at other technology firms. The biggest name in search getting together with one of the biggest names in advertising prompted a raft of complaints to regulators.

The deal went through, but the industry is still watching to see what comes of it. DoubleClick has a reputation that contradicts the Google ethos of 'don't be evil' and the jury is still out on whether Google has reformed the company.

Shaun Nichols: Ten years from now, this one could rank a lot higher on our list. Google's 2007 acquisition of DoubleClick cost the company $3.1bn, but gave it a major presence in the banner ad space. It may not seem like a big deal, until you think about how often you look at banner ads.

The deal was also important because Google makes nearly all its revenue through ads. Even though it has a gazillion different ventures ranging from Maps to Android to Gmail, Google's bread and butter is still advertising sales. Adding DoubleClick brought in a potentially huge cash cow to supplement the company's search ad revenues.

One reflection of the potential size of the deal was the amount of regulatory speculation. While most acquisitions fly right through, Google's acquisition of DoubleClick was given an amount of scrutiny normally reserved for mergers between well-known firms.

Honourable mention: Symantec/Veritas
Shaun Nichols: Symantec made a couple of strong statements with the 2005 acquisition of Veritas. The first was that it wanted to be more than just a security vendor. The company sent a clear message that it had ambitions to move beyond anti-virus tools and become a larger enterprise security vendor.

The second was that it pictured security as more than just blocking attacks. The addition of Veritas meant that Symantec could make security part of a larger enterprise offering. Rather than view security as separate, the company could make security tools a built-in component to other packages.

Iain Thomson: The Symantec/Veritas merger was interesting for many reasons, and I expected it to fail.

Symantec has become the world's biggest security software vendor by aggressively expanding its product range and buying up other companies to help it grow. Outgoing chief executive John Thompson was key to this strategy, and it has served Symantec well.

But with the Veritas acquisition Symantec was leaving the cosy world of security and going into areas that would take it further into new markets. Five years down the line, the company seems to have achieved its goal, although say 'Symantec' and most people still think security.