If there is one thing we learned this past month of summer, it’s that June is a month of acquisitions.
We begin with a company known by everyone, Intel. At the beginning of the month the chip maker bought Altera for $ 16,7 Billion to defend its presence in data centers. Intel has been looking for growth since 2011 and since Altera chips are used in a variety of markets, ranging from communications to consumer electronics. This acquisition may help Intel defend and extend its most profitable business: supplying server chips used in data centers. However, this was not the first, nor the last purchase from Intel since they recently acquired company Recon Instruments. They are the makers of the new Recon Jet™, smart eyewear for sports and high-intensity environments. Recon was formerly an Intel Capital portfolio company. This acquisition gives Intel an experienced wearable computing team that will help them expand the market for head mounted display products and technologies.
But that’s not the only bustle in the chipmaker business; Avago Technologies acquired rival chipmaker Broadcom for $37 Billion. Avago is a semiconductor company which portfolio includes thousands of products in four primary target markets: wireless communications, enterprise storage, wired infrastructure and industrial plus more. Broadcom provides semiconductor solutions for wired and wireless communications. It makes different chips for WiFi and GNSS. The company also produces many of the chips used in networking equipments for data centres. The California-based company’s customers include Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, IBM, Dell, Asus, Lenovo, Logitech, Nintendo, and Nokia Siemens Networks among others. This deal could be a significant move in competing with Intel and Qualcomm in the areas of wired and wireless networking.
Our long term partners from Clothing + were recently acquired by Jabil. The Finland-based textile electronics Clothing Plus brings expertise in integrating electronics in textile. This merger will make it possible for brands to get all services for a textile electronics product from one door with manufacturing capacity.
Inside the healthcare industry, Panasonic Healthcare bought Bayer Diabetes Care for EUR 1,022 million. The sale will include the Contour™ portfolio of blood glucose monitoring meters and strips, as well as other products such as Breeze™2, Elite™ and Microlet™ lancing devices. Bayer’s Diabetes Care business is a technological leader in blood glucose monitoring systems, lancing devices and diabetes management software. The business accounted for EUR 909 million in sales in 2014, with Contour™ being the principal product portfolio and is designed to meet the needs of all patients regardless of type of diabetes, stage of disease, or testing frequency.
Enough about acquisitions, in June we also saw 2 big companies teaming up: German telecommunications provider Deutsche Telekom and Huawei. Together they can improve their hardware and solutions expertise as part of a broader effort to step up cloud activities across the company and compete with Google and Amazon Web Services. This extended agreement combines “know-how and cutting-edge technology in the public cloud area. DT has its cloud services for Europe all provided from German-based data centers, which means they’re subject to that country’s strict data protection guidelines. For numerous European customers concerned about U.S. authorities’ ability to peek at their data – this partnership could be a big selling point.
Lastly,let’s not forget about the product side of wearables, Google unveiled that they are working on a healthcare wearable that provides constant patient information for participants in medical studies and clinical field trials. The device is a project from the Google X group.The device can monitor pulse, heart rhythm, skin temperature, light exposure and noise levels, providing valuable data not just about a patient, but about their surroundings too. Certification will begin this summer and it’s going to pursue regulatory approval for its use in medical contexts in partnership with academic institutions and drug companies.
