Acquisitions are such a frequent occurrence these days
that at the end of each month we are sure to face lots of exciting,
eye-catching deals. September biggest acquisition cost $8.3 billion. It’s so
interesting, when a company buys a startup for a “little” sum, we never know
about the amount, but in case the deal cost $billions, it’s publicized everywhere.
September activists are Yahoo and Google with two acquisitions
each. The list goes from Silicon Valley to biotechnology; mobile and games and
lots of cloud, cloud and cloud. Let’s start with the first deal made by
Genesys.
Genesys - the market leader in multi-channel customer
experience and contact center solutions in the cloud and on-premises announced
the acquisition of Singapore-based CanaPlus Consulting - a leading systems
integrator that brings over a decade of expertise implementing Genesys
solutions in the APAC region for large, multi-national financial services
companies and other leading regional organizations.
Yahoo is buying Luminate, a startup founded in 2008 by LiveOps, Netscape and
Yahoo alums that has created a platform for interactive, tagged images-or, as
we have called it in the past, an AdSense for images.
Google has bought Lift Labs, the maker of a
tremor-cancelling spoon aimed at improving the lives of people suffering from
Parkinson’s and essential tremor. The acquisition marks a further move into the
biotech industry for the Silicon Valley giant -and Google said it hopes to
explore how the technology could be used in other ways to improve the quality
of life of people with neurodegenerative diseases.
BlackBerry has acquired a UK-based mobile technology
start-up whose software allows
users to have multiple phone numbers on the same device. The purchase of
Movirtu helps BlackBerry ramp up its portfolio of services to cater to the
needs of its core base of corporate and government clients. Movirtu's virtual
SIM technology allows an individual to have both a personal and business number
on a single mobile device, with separate billing for voice, data and messaging
usage on each number.
Google is bringing Polar over to Google+ in the hopes
that the team behind the popular opinion-tracking service will be able to heat
up Google's social network. Polar was founded approximately two years ago. Its
current line of business, which it will be shutting down at the end of the
year, is just what its name suggests: easy-to-use polls that can be filled out
via various Web services and apps.
Microsoft announced
it will buy Minecraft maker Mojang for $2.5 billion. The Mojang team will join
Microsoft Studios, maker of popular video games Halo, Forza and Fable, among
others.
German enterprise software vendor SAP SE
announced that it will acquire Concur Technologies for $8.3 billion, marking it
its biggest purchase ever. Concur Technologies is a leading provider of
integrated cloud-based travel and expense management solutions who has over
20,000 clients around the globe and is accessed by over 25 million users.
Through the acquisition, SAP intends to further strengthen its presence in the
networked economy.
Yahoo has bought
Bangalore-based Bookpad, a startup that's barely a year old and founded by
three youngsters who passed out of IIT-Guwahati over the past three years.
Bookpad's enterprise software product, DocsPad, allows users to view any
document (like PDF, Word, Powerpoint), as also edit and annotate it, within a
website or app. It works across devices, and does not require downloading of
plug-ins or desktop software.
Red Hat acquired OpenStack pioneer eNovance to help
bolster its global OpenStack portfolio. eNovance a leading provider of open
source cloud computing services. Combined with Red Hat's existing leadership in
OpenStack, the addition of eNovance's systems integration capabilities and
engineering talent is aimed at meeting growing demand for enterprise OpenStack
consulting, design and deployment.
