Who dares wins, M&A style

As I pack my bags for the West Coast, I can't help but admire the consolidation machines of Dialogic and GENBAND. 

In his column this week, Carl Ford goes deeper into Dialogic's acquisition of NMS's hardware business and the deal makes sense for both sides. Dialogic CEO Nick Jensen gets more of that video story he craves and a built-in customer for hardware (LiveWire Mobile). It's a solid deal for Dialogic.

GENBAND's purchase of NextPoint was, perhaps, an inevitable transaction. Like Dialogic, GENBAND was shopping for SBC and DPI technology. I suspect, unlike Dialogic, GENBAND was willing to pay a "premium" for NextPoint's share of the SBC market. With 17 percent market share, NextPoint comes in as the second largest player, with Acme Packet dominating the SBC field with over/around 50 percent.  

Exactly how much GENBAND paid is an interesting question. I doubt that it was a dollar-for-dollar match compared to the amount of venture money put into the piece parts of NextPoint over the years. And it was no big secret that NextPoint had pared itself down over the summer in order to be acquired.

And then there's Nortel.  A couple of weeks ago, it bought Pingtel for a song. Now it's out to sell its Metro Ethernet division. Let's see what happens next. Nortel may end up shedding more hardware by the time the smoke clears, but I wouldn't put it past them to pick up more software-based assets moving forward.

- Doug

P.S. - I'll be in Phoenix for AstriCon on September 24 and 25.  Be interesting to see what Digium has in store at its annual love-in.