The collaboration industry is growing at record speed, driven by the increasing demand for new, more efficient ways to bring teams together. In an age of remote working and globalisation, we all rely on collaboration software to get things done. It’s no wonder that so many brands from different backgrounds are beginning to invest in their own collaboration offerings.
RS Components, an electronics and technology company, recently put together a 10-year timeline exploring the investments that huge organisations have made into the collaboration sector in the last decade. Here’s what they found out.
Impressive Acquisitions in the Collaboration Market
From Google to Microsoft, there are plenty of big names to look at when it comes to investment in collaboration tools. However, most people couldn’t tell you which business has pushed the most money into this growing market. Over the years, we’ve seen a significant amount of consolidation and acquisition in the market as brands look for ways to define themselves as the biggest and best tool available.
Here’s what RS Components discovered when they started to explore the acquisitions that have happened in the collaboration space during the last 10 years:
- Google has acquired an incredible number of companies: Google has purchased more than 182 different companies in the previous ten years. That’s more than double the company with the second largest acquisition record, Microsoft. Microsoft only made 89 acquisitions in total over the last decade
- Google, Microsoft and IBM are in the lead for acquisitions. Google claims the top spot with its incredible 182 purchases, followed by Microsoft at 89, and IBM at 87. Following closely behind those three names are Cisco Systems with 81 purchases, Apple with 81, Oracle with 77 and Facebook with 75
- Microsoft is catching up: While Microsoft didn’t have nearly as many acquisitions as Google overall, the company did make the most acquisitions in 2018, at 16. Google and Oracle both came in second last year, acquiring 9 companies each
- HP Inc. is the company with the least acquisitions across the last decade – with only 19 in total. Following close to the bottom is Xerox with 23 purchases, and Adobe Systems with 26
Consolidation in Collaboration
RS Components discovered that competition in the collaboration tech space is high, with plenty of big players splashing out giant sums of money. In 2018, in particular, there were a lot of impressive acquisitions to consider. Microsoft purchased the developer community Github for a hefty price of $7.5 billion, while IBM spent $34 billion on Red Hat, the software company.
The RS Components study shows that there’s a lot of interest in collaborative acquisitions lately, with some companies making much larger investments than others. As the demand for collaborative tools continues to grow, there’s no doubt that there will be more businesses changing hands in the years to come.
