Noteworthy technology acquisitions in April and May 2021
In the aftermath of the coronavirus, 2020 proved to be more unpredictable than anyone anticipated. However, one constant has been the steady flow of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) across the technology sector.
GlobalData reports that global technology M&A deals totaled $634 billion last year, an increase of 91.8 percent year-over-year. Among a late flurry of large deals were Advanced Micro Devices' $35 billion acquisition of Xilinx and Salesforce's $27.7 billion acquisition of Slack.
If the first half of the year is any indication, there will be no slowing of large deals across the industry, with silicon innovations and collaboration software already proving to be hot areas.
The following is a list of the largest enterprise technology acquisitions made thus far in April and May 2021, in reverse chronological order:
May 10: ServiceNow acquires Lightstep
For an undisclosed sum, ServiceNow acquired software observability specialist Lightstep.
Due to the increased complexity of enterprise systems in the cloud era, engineers and technology leaders want more insight into how their systems are performing and what is causing issues — quickly. Following the acquisition, ServiceNow will look to integrate these capabilities with its existing tools for IT teams to respond to issues.
Lightstep, founded in San Francisco by former Google employees, had already raised approximately $70 million in venture capital funding from firms such as Sequoia, Redpoint, and Altimeter.
“This acquisition will be extremely beneficial: ServiceNow's customers power many of the world's most critical software applications! As a ServiceNow company, Lightstep will be in a much stronger position to reach these customers, deliver our product, and assist them in innovating more quickly – with clarity and confidence,” Lightstep cofounder and CEO Ben Sigelman wrote in a blog post.
Bill McDermott, CEO of ServiceNow, was an acquisitive executive during his tenure at SAP and appears to be continuing that strategy in his new role, having acquired a half-dozen new companies since joining in 2019.
May 3: Dell sells Boomi for $4B
Dell completed its second high-profile reorganization in less than a month by selling integration specialist Boomi to private equity firms Francisco Partners and TPG for $4 billion. This follows the company's April decision to spin off its VMware business.
“The ability to integrate and connect data and workflows across any combination of applications or domains is a critical business capability, and we are confident that Boomi is well positioned to assist businesses of all sizes in transforming data into their most valuable asset,” Francisco CEO Dipanjan Deb and partner Brian Decker stated in a statement.
April 30: IBM acquires Turbonomic
At the end of April, IBM announced the acquisition of Turbonomic for an undisclosed sum.
The Boston, Massachusetts-based company specializes in Application Resource Management (ARM) and Network Performance Management (NPM) software; it leverages machine learning to identify and optimize application performance issues and underlying resources, including containers, virtual machines, servers, storage, networks, and databases.
The acquisition is similar to IBM's acquisition of Instana last year, as the company looks to capitalize on the observability trend. All of these acquisitions will enable IBM to provide customers with a broader range of AIOps and observability options, most notably through its IBM Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps.
IBM is continuing to reshape its future as a hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence company, according to Rob Thomas, senior vice president, IBM Cloud and Data Platform. “The Turbonomic acquisition demonstrates our commitment to making the most significant investments possible to advance this strategy and ensure customers have access to the most innovative ways to power their digital transformations.”
April 29: Microsoft acquires Kinvolk
Microsoft expanded its Kubernetes capabilities with the acquisition of German firm Kinvolk for an undisclosed sum.
Kinvolk was founded in 2015 with the goal of assisting developers in adopting cloud-native technologies such as containers and Kubernetes, including Flatcar Container Linux, a competitor to CoreOS Container Linux, as well as the Lokomotive and Inspektor Gadget projects.
Microsoft intends to integrate the Kinvolk team and technology into the team responsible for its managed Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), its hybrid cloud offering Azure Arc, and to expand Microsoft's upstream open-source contributions.
“We're thrilled to welcome the Kinvolk team and their technologies to Microsoft and look forward to their contributions to Azure, our customers, and the open source community,” Brendan Burns, corporate vice president, Azure Compute, wrote in a company blog post.
April 23: Panasonic acquires Blue Yonder for $7.1B
Panasonic acquired the remaining 80% of Blue Yonder's shares in April for $7.1 billion, including debt repayment.
Blue Yonder, based in Arizona, specializes in automated supply chain software that tracks goods through the use of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and edge computing technology. Panasonic intends to incorporate these capabilities into its Autonomous Supply Chain offering, which assists customers in tracking their supply chains and forecasting future demand for increased efficiency.
"I am overjoyed to welcome Blue Yonder and its affiliates to the Panasonic Group. Both companies share the same mission of assisting customers' frontline operations, and our corporate cultures are extremely similar. By combining the two companies, we hope to create a world in which waste is eliminated autonomously throughout the supply chain and the cycle of sustainable improvement continues,” Panasonic CEO Yuki Kusumi said in a statement.
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