Greenshoots or Brownshoots

IBM is to acquire SPSS for $1.2Billon, the annoucement sent SPSS share price to its all time high of ~$50: the bid price represents a 42% premium over SPSS's steady state valuation. Is this the start of the real greenshoots in business world acquisition or a long swim at bottom of the tub in the pool of the recession? Either way, IBM is executing on its strategy of building a strong analytics practice by consolidating global workforce of 2000+ skilled resources, creating a marketing strategy around it and now purchsing one of the leading software applications (the other one is SAS).

My hunch for the future is, being in the game is more important than watching the game from outside. It is important for IBM to do its best to embark on this journey and be a key player in this space. The opposite strategy would be strategizing and watching where everyone else is going and be left out of the game ultimately. Choose wisely.