The emergence of large data will promote mergers and acquisitions investment

According to foreign media reports, the world's largest network equipment maker Cisco believes that by 2015, the Internet every 5 minutes will produce data equivalent to the amount of data contained in all movies. As a result, technology companies such as Cisco, IBM, Google and Hewlett-Packard, which are well-funded by a few working capitalists, are about to step up mergers and acquisitions in order to turn data traffic into profits, hoping to enhance their companies' competitiveness in data storage, analysis and security services.

According to IDC's report, the worldwide volume of digital information on the Internet is about 2.7ZB this year and is expected to surge to 8ZB by 2015, equivalent to the combined storage of 2.7 billion Apple iMacs. This shows that the advent of large-scale data, mobile and cloud technologies will surely force technology companies to invest heavily in mergers and acquisitions.

Jon Woodruff, co-head of investment banking at Goldman Sachs, argues that the pace of technological innovation does not allow participants to miss one step, and every tool must be used to increase speed and agility, and acquisitions are an important tool.

Chet Bozdog, global head of technology investment at Bank of America, said the convergence of hardware, software and services will continue to add new products to the sales chain.

Such as cloud computing allows companies to obtain information from external data centers over the Internet, as well as desktop applications to mobile products, which will be the trend in the next few years. The view of Drago Rajkovic, head of acquisitions at JPMorgan Chase, confirms what Chet Bozdog said.

In fact, as part of this trend, SAP, the world's largest business management software company, acquired SuccessFactors, a talent solutions provider, for $ 3.4 billion in December last year in hopes of boosting cloud business.

In addition, the increase in cash for large technology companies made the acquisition of some potential targets more viable and the valuation of these targets declining. F5 Networks, the world's leading supplier of application delivery networks, saw its sales rise 31% but its share price dropped 18% in 2011. Riverbed Technology, a provider of network equipment, reported a 32% increase in revenue but fell 33%. Acme Packet reported a 33% increase in sales last year, while shares fell 42%.

Arry Sonsini, co-founder of law firm Wilson, analyzes that more technology companies will join M & A this year as M & A transactions further increase as the valuation trend is further rationalized.