Abstract:

This vision paper looks into the last three decades of merges and acquisitions in the software industry and explores if the takeover strategy is still valid and promising and what implications could be drawn for software business. Our main ndings highlight that the number of deals is decreasing but the average deal size is increasing. We also discover that the frequency of M& A is decreasing despite the growing S&P 500 index. We discuss the possible hypothesis and implications from these observations.