Ashlee Vance from the Bits Blog has a nice piece on why Cisco raised another $4b of cash through a debt offering yesterday even though they have $30b in cash.
"As word of Cisco’s debt sale hit Wall Street, the standard chatter surrounding possible targets began anew. As usual, companies like EMC, NetApp, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat and BMC were discussed as desirable properties."
Regarding Cisco I have heard the same acquisition rumors. On the smaller private company side, my two cents would be platform consolidation opportunities in the security space (software that can help tie their disparate security products together), bolstering their Scientific Atlanta acquisition by adding more interactive and ad targeting products for the digital set top box, and tuck-in acquisitions for their EOS or social networking initiative (see CNET article for more on this initiative)
I would love to hear your thoughts on this as well.
Cisco’s recent entry into the server market will also necessitate a larger warchest as they will now be competing more frequently w/HP, IBM, Dell, etc