Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2015, when Dell’s purchase of EMC was announced; the deal closed in 2016. The ranking of acquisitions and the “only time will tell” remark about WhatsApp reflect 2015.
Now that Dell’s purchase of EMC has been confirmed, we can talk about the biggest acquisition ever seen in the tech world. EMC has been bought by Dell for $67 billion, a deal surpassed only by AOL’s purchase of Time Warner in 2000, although that was the acquisition of a media company rather than a technology company.
Business Insider put together a chart showing the other biggest acquisitions in the history of tech.
The list includes Compaq, a brand acquired by HP that failed to live up to expectations because the hoped-for synergies never materialised. According to Business Insider, the deal cost Carly Fiorina, HP’s CEO at the time, her job.
Google’s purchase of Motorola didn’t turn out to be a good idea either, and Google soon sold it on to Lenovo.
Meanwhile, one of the biggest deals was Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp, a $19 billion operation. Only time will tell whether it was worth it for Facebook.
Featured image: Ben P L, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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