Tech M&A accelerates: Will the No. 2 and No. 3 players sell out or compete?

In this installment of The Big Question podcast TechRepublic's Jason Hiner and I talk about the evolving tech landscape as mergers and acquisitions accelerate. There are plenty M&A possibilities ahead, but tech industry may wind up with giant vendors and startups and little in between.

Meanwhile, a lot of companies will have to make some big decisions. Will IBM get back into networking hardware? What should companies like Juniper and Brocade do? Will there be enough strong No. 2 players to go around?

The Big Question is a joint production from ZDNet and TechRepublic.

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Stories discussed in this episode:

• HP announces $2.7 billion acquisition of 3Com (ZDNet)
• Cisco vs. HP: 3Com acquisition ups the ante (ZDNet)
• Seven tech industry acquisitions we would sanction (TechRepublic)
• Logitech Buys LifeSize. Now what about Polycom? (ZDNet)
• Google spent about $780 million today (ZDNet)
• EU showdown over Oracle-Sun; Objections seem imminent (ZDNet)