IT M&A: Big Name Firms 'Open' For Business In 2009

2009 looks set to be a major year for M&A in the 'open-source' IT sector, a trend of increasing importance that in the long term has the scope to reshape the IT industry itself. Throughout 2008, CFW highlighted how the Information Technology (IT) sector, was still producing M&A deals despite the economic climate and financial crisis. In particular, we highlighted the increasing prevalence of firms producing open source (OS) technology (broadly, any program whose source code is made available for use or modification by other users or other developers) in those deals taking place. Frequently developed by public collaboration, OS software differs from the closed, centralised products produced by traditional 'proprietary' software vendors, such as Microsoft.

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