紐約時報 (New York Times) 報導幾件相關的併購案
IBM、SAP、Oracle、和 HP 分別併購了四家公司，共同的特色是使用雲端技術，儲存與分析大量的企業資料，例如零售資料以決定定價和行銷策略、人力資源管理、顧客服務、和法務案例 (legal cases)。
併購的原因是幫助這些成熟的公司進入新的市場
Historically, the enterprise market has been dominated by installed software, which typically involves large upfront fees and recurring service expenses. But in recent years, more companies, large and small, have started to migrate to the Web to manage their businesses and customer relationships at a potentially lower cost. Adam Holt, an analyst with Morgan Stanley, predicted that corporations would increase their use of cloud-based services by at least 50 percent or more every year, for the next three years.
或增加獲利率
Autonomy falls within the broad category of services known as enterprise software. It is among the fastest-growing and lucrative parts of the software industry: Autonomy reported $466 million in revenue for the first half of the year, with an operating profit margin of 44 percent.
By contrast, H.P.’s personal computer business has an operating margin of about 5 percent. The company is seeking to spin off that unit.