Software Consolidation: 'Nuff Said

Why do you bang your head against the wall? Because it feels so good when I stop...

Over the last few weeks I have posted a series of blogs challenging the notion of software industry  "consolidation" - here, here, here, here...need that extra strength, migraine quality stuff! 

My view is in fragmented markets like software and services, M&A  is an on-going (and healthy) phenomenon.  However, like solar flares which happen all the time, there are more active times than others. Those who want to believe we will be down to 4, 10 or 25 vendors in the next couple of years will continue to believe so. Hopefully, entrepreneurs will continue to launch new  plays and smart buyers will not be  conned into over-paying for "lack of viable choices".

I appreciate the fact that Chris Selland, Jason Busch, Bill McNee, S. Sadagopan have stopped short of calling me an outright idiot, but hopefully I have flamed at least some level of balanced  thinking on the topic.   It is good to see others challenging the mainstream consolidation thinking - see Bryan Stolle, David Dobrin, Bill Burnham, Erik Keller and others.

In the meantime, there are other more fun consolidations to focus on...