The pandemic 2020 redesigned the world and everybody’s routine. We turned virtual for socializing, schooling, delivering, banking, and working. And everything has been possible due to the tech industry.
Software and hardware to power this new world have kept evolving and growing massively.
Tech players have been totally focused on getting the biggest profit out of this. The announcement of new mergers and acquisitions clearly showed strategic movements to expand, fight for the leadership, or have new market opportunities.
Let’s take a look at the billionaire tech deals of 2020.
Morgan Stanley acquiring ETrade for $13 billion dollars
In February 2020, the American investment bank announced the deal that finally was closed in October 2020.
ETrade supplies an electronic platform for trading financial instruments (preferred stocks, common stocks, exchange-traded funds, mutual funds, etc.).
For Morgan Stanley, this deal means a strategic new arm focused on consumers exactly when retail is experiencing one of its highest peaks due to the pandemic.
The New York-based bank aims to attract younger customers through lower margins related to digital solutions like commission-free trading or chatbots advisory to power its wealth management department.
Analog Devices is buying its rival Maxim Integrated Products for $21 billion dollars
Analog Devices is a semiconductor maker specialized in signal processing, data conversion, and power management tech. Maxim Integrated Products Inc. produces integrated circuits for communications, computing, industrial, healthcare, automotive markets.
Analog is moving to boost its presence in the 5G chipmaking and automotive market through this strong combination that will let them compete with bigger enterprises like Texas Instruments.
The deal is facing the approval process by regulators in Europe, China, and the USA.
Salesforce.com is acquiring Slack for $27.7 billion dollars
Salesforce provides enterprise apps for customer service, analytics, MKT automation, and much more.
On the other hand, Slack is a communication platform (direct messaging, chat rooms, and private groups).
Salesforce integrates a communication platform to its apps suite in a moment of widespread remote work due to the pandemic. It sounds like a good move, but it will be challenging to compete head to head with platforms like Zoom. Slack is a pioneer of chat and messaging but not yet involved in conferencing (audio/video), a real-time solution currently very demanded.
In any case, this integration strengthens Salesforce’s offer for enterprises and makes it more robust to compete with the Google Workspace and Microsoft 365/Teams options.
AMD is buying its rival Xilinx for $35 billion dollars
Xilinx is a specialist in programmable processors for high performance (video file compression, digital encryption, etc.). AMD is acquiring the necessary power for competing directly with the giant Intel in data centers.
Xilinx’s customers and products are the perfect complement for AMD to offer a strong portfolio of high-performance processor tech (FPGAs, GPUs, CPUs, adaptive SoCs, etc.). Opportunities seem unlimited for AMD: data centers, PCs, aerospace, automotive, defense, gaming, communications, etc.
Those $35 billions look like a very smart investment to compete for a really big piece of the chip market.
Nvidia is acquiring Arm for $40 billion dollars
Another big and ambitious purchase announcement. Arm is a chip architecture designer based in England. Nvidia is a multinational tech enterprise, designer of graphics processing units and chips for all kinds of professional markets.
This combo has a strong potential. The large Arm’s designs portfolio added to Nvidia’s AI computing power could totally move PCs, smartphones, the cloud, self-driven cars, robotics, and IoT to a top-notch level, and AI computing could expand worldwide.
Nvidia hasn’t closed this mega-deal yet. Approval from Chinese regulators doesn’t seem easy to get. In the past, they have already blocked USA companies from acquiring European players.
Conclusion
2020 boosted the tech ten years as a minimum! Some of these massive deals’ result is still on the air. Let see what 2021 brings to the table.