The 451 Group: Inorganic Growth submits:
By Brenon Daly
We hand out our version of the Oscar every year in late December. (Like the movie industry award, our Golden Tombstone is voted on by folks in the industry, which, in this case, are fellow corporate development executives.) Last year, Oracle’s (ORCL) drawn-out acquisition of Sun Microsystems took the top spot, while the year before, Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ) multibillion-dollar purchase of services giant EDS caught the voters’ favor. But watching Christopher Waltz and Mo’Nique Sunday night pick up best supporting actor and actress, respectively, reminded us that we neglected to award our Golden Tombstone for best supporting strategic player last year.