Software Industry M&A: What’s Next?

By Rob Preston

The software industry is fast consolidating around only a handful of dominant players: IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, and SAP in the first tier, and Hewlett-Packard, EMC, CA, and Symantec in a second, more narrowly focused one. Quibble if you want about which companies belong where, but it’s clear that software is going the way of the PC, auto, lighting fixture, consumer goods, and other mature manufacturing industries: ruled by the giants.

Are we done yet? Hardly. Expect much more consolidation in the months and years ahead. What follows is a purely speculative though objective analysis on what could follow, company by massive software company.

See more at http://www.unitedBIT.com