Skip to content

40 Tech Deals That Had Big Channel Impact

  • by

Channel programs News

CRN Staff

CRN reviews 40 of the biggest tech deals that affected the channel: from Novell’s Wordperfect purchase to Broadcom’s impending VMware acquisition.

In the 40 years since CRN was founded, there have been billions and billions of dollars spent on mergers and acquisitions in the tech world. Many of these deals have shaped the channel in one way or another.

Some of the biggest and most noteworthy deals in the tech sector are also the ones that had big channel impact. Take, for instance, Dell Technologies’ $67 billion acquisition of EMC, which further strengthened Dell’s enterprise position in the industry and created the environment for VMware’s spin-off and still-planned VMware acquisition by Broadcom. Or IBM’s $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat, which bolstered Big Blue’s open source software chops.

Other big deals, such as Borland International’s $439 million acquisition of Ashton-Tate or Microsoft’s pursuit of 86-DOS from a company in Seattle, have long faded from the front pages of CRN and other tech media outlets, but ended up significantly altering the course of the tech industry.

Still other deals at the time were thought to be perfect matches between completely complementary companies that ended up the exact opposite: Hewlett-Packard Co.’s deal for enterprise software firm Autonomy, for example.

Click through the slideshow to see the 40 deals, from traditional M&A to spin-outs, that had some of the biggest impacts on the channel.


.