| Sourced From |
It’s shopping time in greentech.
SAP, the software giant that competes against Oracle, IBM and Microsoft for large corporate accounts, announced today that it would buy Clear Standards, a privately held firm that helps businesses track and report greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption.
Chances are, it won’t be the last. High-technology giants in the U.S., Europe and Japan have all signaled their intent to pursue opportunities in energy production or conservation. Earlier this year, for instance, Cisco announced its EnergyWise strategy, which essentially involves creating software that allows large companies control the energy consumption of data centers and ultimately building operations through Cisco networking equipment.
Intel has been selling processors to the wind turbine market and is experimenting with ways of getting its chips into smart grid equipment. Several companies such as Panasonic are trying to figure out ways to move deeper into greentech. Interestingly, Oracle just put in a bid for Sun Microsystems, which has been touting its ability to make energy-efficient servers, storage systems and data centers.
And if history is any indication, many will move into this market through acquisitions. SAP, Oracle and Cisco have bought dozens of companies over the past decade and often successfully incorporated the acquired technology into their own portfolios. (Intel has had a more checkered career in acquisitions so you will probably see that company focus more on deploying its existing products into green markets.) The recent downturn has also made potential targets far cheaper than they were a year ago. Another factor encouraging acquistions: a large number of energy start-ups now are based around familiar technologies such as networking, hardware and software. These are topics that the IT giants know a lot better than solar power.
Software companies producing energy and carbon management software could become in particular a ripe area for acquisitions. Over 40 of these companies
Related posts: