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eBay offloads Skype, its famous and somewhat failed acquisition by selling it to a group of private equity firms. Though the acquisition failed from the point of view of operations and technology (expected integration never happened) it came out to be a success from a financial point of view. In fact, Skype has turned out to be a profitable and high-growth firm (try following the valuations along Skype's lifecycle).

Yet another acquisition by Google. The company, also thanks to its impressive position in cash, has a long-term strategy of using acquisitions in order to grow its base of technology assets and competencies.

Bloomberg takes a look at Apple's spate of corporate acquisitions over the past six months, which has seen the company reverse a long-standing policy of making very infrequent deals with its recent purchases of Quattro Wireless, Lala Media, Intrinsity, and Siri. In particular, the report points to the growing rivalry between Apple and Google, stoked in large part on the acquisitions front by Google reportedly swooping in to snatch mobile advertising firm AdMob just as Apple was looking to finalize a deal to do so. "The pace has really picked up, there seems to be a strategic shift," said Charlie Wolf, an analyst with Needham & Co. in New York. "It looks like there's an acquisition frenzy going on between Google and Apple in the sense that there's an increasing urgency on Apple's part to stay even if not ahead of Google in the phone space and apps space. One interesting tidbit included in the report is evidence that Apple has sometimes moved very quickly when looking to make an acquisition, even giving targets as little as three hours to agree to a deal. To avoid publicity and possible rival bids, Apple in some cases has offered a target only a three-hour period in which to accept the terms of a sale, according to one executive with knowledge of the situation.

We all know stories of radical innovation becoming disruptive because incumbent cannot change their competencies and embrace the upcoming technology. Maybe not any more, given the fluidity of modern markets for technology. In fact, one of the main players of the e-paper industry, PVI, is in fact a subsidiary of a major Taiwanese paper mill, and has pursued an interesting strategy of partnership and acquisition in order to transition to the new technology.

In a statement, RIM President and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said: "RIM is excited about the planned acquisition of QNX Software Systems and we look forward to ongoing collaboration between Harman, QNX and RIM to further integrate and enhance the user experience between smartphones and in-vehicle audio and infotainment systems. In addition to our interests in expanding the opportunities for QNX in the automotive sector and other markets, we believe the planned acquisition of QNX will also bring other value to RIM in terms of supporting certain unannounced product plans for intelligent peripherals, adding valuable intellectual property to RIM's portfolio and providing long-term synergies for the companies based on the significant and complementary OS expertise that exists within the RIM and QNX teams today."

Another comment on the HP/Palm acquisition. 

Google and Apple continue to find themselves on opposite sides of the world, as Google has apparently agreed to buy a chip-design start-up populated by former Apple employees. Agnilux, a stealth chip start-up in San Jose, Calif., is Google's latest acquisition. A company spokesman confirmed the parties had reached a deal but provided no further details on one of Google's more curious acquisitions in recent memory. Little is known about Agnilux other than the fact that it was founded by former employees of P.A. Semi, the chip start-up Apple bought in 2008. The New York Times attempted to track down details about the company in February and didn't get very far, but was able to confirm that several former P.A. Semi and Apple employees were among the co-founders, as well as Scott Redman, a former software architect at TiVo.

What comes after client-server computing? Is is the cloud (dominated by Google?) or is it the network (dominated by Facebook)? These two companies' battle is no longer with Microsoft (who wisely has taken a stake in the latter) but among themselves. Despite its innovativeness and clout, Google hasn't been able to replicate Facebook's success. Now it is using acquisitions to strenghten its position. 

Intel's acquisition of McAfee is puzzling. Beyond the financial motivation are there technical and business ones? Are we going to see a higher degree of integration, with security algorithms built in microprocessors? What is the impact going to be on the product and the value chain?

Small high-tech firms are universally considered to be key for stimulating innovation and economic growth. But what if these companies do not grow, due to limited entrepreneurial ambition, premature acquisitions, limited access to market? This is a key problem for policy-makers, but also for the stakeholders of these firms.

Google on Tuesday said it will acquire Global IP Solutions Holding, which makes processing software for voice and video over IP, for $68.2 million. The deal means that Google will own the voice and video conferencing engine behind its competitors' instant messaging systems. Global IP Solutions (GIPS) provides best-in-class voice and video processing in IP communications. GIPS enables its customers to deliver unmatched quality, with a faster time to market and less risk than alternative solutions. Its customer list includes Nortel, Oracle, Samsung, WebEx, Yahoo!, AOL and other key players in the VoIP market. The purchase of GIPS comes a day before Google's I/O conference. Given Google's acquisition of Gizmo5 and its existing Google Voice service, the search giant appears to be collecting enough assets to give Skype and others competition on the consumer and business fronts. GIPS's software can also be layered into Google Apps in multiple areas as a business collaboration tool.

Google's innovation strategy started out with mostly internal developments, then moved to related acquisitions - mostly to speed up innovation - and is now moving towards loosely related investment. However, this effort is not viewed as diversification but as getting a foothold in fields that now seem unrelated, but might not be in the future, giving the ubiquity of information technology

Another twist to the eBay-Skype saga. Skype's new owners (a group of investors who recently bought a majority stake from eBay, plus eBay itself) are being sued for copyright infringement by Jotlid. Jotlid is Skype founders' IP warchest and is the real owner of the core code on which Skype runs ... under a seemingly quite restrictive licence. When IPR is central to M&A, doing due diligence definitely is not an easy affair!

More and more car companies are getting their feet in next-generation vehicles. In this case, by buying a stake in a startup company.

That Palm couldn't make it alone was quite clear. However, its competence and assets (the WebOS operating system) are pretty valuable, especially in the hands of the world's largest PC maker now trying to figure out what happens beyond the era of the PC.

An interesting interview with Dr Robert Cooper, senior consultant to Fortune 500 firms and top scholar in the field of innovation management. Today markets in many countries and industries are flat and increasingly commoditized, gains in market shares are expensive and acquisitions often don't work. In addiction, even traditional product development (for most companies, this means line extensions, improvements and product modifications) seems depleted, and only serves to maintain market share. For R. Cooper, the answer is "true innovation - breakthrough products, services and solutions - that create growth engines for the future and some examples, such as Apple's IPod, are often cited."

HP and Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which HP will purchase Palm, a provider of smartphones powered by the Palm webOS mobile operating system, at a price of $5.70 per share of Palm common stock in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $1.2 billion. The transaction has been approved by the HP and Palm boards of directors. The combination of HP's global scale and financial strength with Palm's unparalleled webOS platform will enhance HP's ability to participate more aggressively in the fast-growing, highly profitable smartphone and connected mobile device markets. Palm's unique webOS will allow HP to take advantage of features such as true multitasking and always up-to-date information sharing across applications. "Palm's innovative operating system provides an ideal platform to expand HP's mobility strategy and create a unique HP experience spanning multiple mobile connected devices," said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. "And, Palm possesses significant IP assets and has a highly skilled team. The smartphone market is large, profitable and rapidly growing, and companies that can provide an integrated device and experience command a higher share. Advances in mobility are offering significant opportunities, and HP intends to be a leader in this market."

Toyota has agreed to invest $50m in Tesla, the Californian builder of battery-powered cars, as it seeks to extend the dominance it has built in petrol-electric hybrids into the next generation of green vehicles. The deal announced on Thursday makes Toyota the second big global automaker to invest in Tesla, a six-year-old startup founded by Elon Musk, creator of the internet payment service PayPal, and backed by other Silicon Valley luminaries such as Google's founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin. The deal could help Toyota repair its reputation in the US after a series of safety problems that have forced it to recall millions of its cars, pay a $16.4m fine and endure multiple investigations by Congress. Toyota has built a big lead in low-emission cars with its Prius hybrid, which went on sale in 1997, and is by far the best-selling alternative to standard petrol-only vehicles. But some other carmakers are preparing to try and leap-frog Toyota by introducing battery-only cars.

Il gruppo VW ha annunciato di aver acquisito l'Italdesign di Giorgetto Giugiaro, azienda che si occupa di industrial e transportation design. Il famoso designer automobilistico, che ha disegnato famosi modelli come Fiat (Grande Punto, Uno, Panda, Croma), VW (Golf, Passat), Alfa Romeo e Seat, passerebbe quindi ad occuparsi esclusivamente dei modelli del Gruppo VW (VW, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Lamborghini, Skoda, Bugatti e Suzuki). L'Italdesign si occupa di studi stilistici e soluzioni ingegneristiche nel campo automobilistico, grazie all'utilizzo di sofisticati software come CAD, CAM, CAE e CAS: è quindi un'importante azienda a livello internazionale che motlo know-how.

The Skype saga is getting closer to its end. The recent lawsuit with the founders' IP company is going to be settled, with Skype getting hold of the code... and the founders receiving shares of the company. Founders definitely made a very clever set of moves when setting up their company.