We rarely write about stocks or the stock market, but this week ends with me wishing we had bought a boatload of shares in Sybase (SY) a week or so ago. With German software behometh SAP buying them out, the value of SY shares spiked about 60 percent.
Now, rumor mills in the tech world seem to be abuzz with likely takeover targets by the likes of IBM, Oracle, Microsoft and other huge, hungry and cash-rich companies–leaving us to wonder: Who’s next?
David Benoit with Dow Jones New Wire discussed this very issue in his well-written Speculation On Next Tech Buyout Kicks Into High Gear. In the article, he points out that big firms like IBM, Oracle (ORCL), Hewlett Packart (HPQ), Microsoft (MS), EMC and Cisco (CSCO) are all on the hunt for complementary takeovers. Potential targets and rising stars, Benoit says, might include Teradata (TDC), Netezza Corp (NZ) and Informatica Corp (INFA).
All have risen 2.6 to 5.1 percent in the last week.
My personal favorite target for a big company seeking to dominate the database market might be ANTS Software, with its ANTS Compatibility Server (ACS)–which allows businesses to consolidate and migrate varied and costly databases over to one vendor (say from SAP to Oracle) without having to reprogram costly applications.It’s disruptive and patented technology just might facilitate businesses merging and consolidating database information from the likes of Oracle to IBM–or SAP to Oracle–or MS to IBM.
You get the idea–and why ANTS might make such a strategic buy for IBM, MS, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, SAP or other big database vendor. And that speculation might also explain why shares in this little company have gone from .80 per share a month ago to $2.40 as of this writing.
And by way of disclosure, we DO own shares of ANTS and had once speculated the company would be a stand alone utility in the world of database management. More recently, though, we are beginning to wonder if ANTS might instead become a red-hot takeover target–and follow CEO Joe Kozak’s blog closely.
That is the luxury of speculation mixed with just a little knowledge.
I think you are reading my speculative mind.