Rumors of acquisitions abound

It is not just who is going to put Lehman Brothers out of their misery in the M&A grist rumor mill.  In the tech world there are two interesting potentially big deals being rumored:

1. Why are wireless companies like bellybuttons?  Because it seems like everyone has one.  Continuing the recent trend Juniper wants to be latest one on the block to acquire their own wireless company.  According to reports, they are interested in buying Meru Networks (96 million raised) or publicly traded Aruba.  While Meru has nice technology, an Aruba buy would be a great fit for Juniper.  Aruba is Cisco's biggest competitor in the wireless space, so should fit well with Juniper's take on Cisco persona.

From various sources, it will be one or the other of these two wireless providers, but Juniper is certainly buying one.

2. What took them so long?  I have always thought for the longest time that Citrix was a good buy for Microsoft.  Now once again rumors are flying that Redmond will finally pull the trigger on this multi-billion dollar deal.  Cicso, IBM and HP are also rumored to be in the hunt this time though. I guess the virtualization stuff is driving a lot of that.

I have also heard rumors that Citrix will be moving its HQ from Ft Lauderdale to Silicon Valley.  The South Florida tech community would certainly be a big loser in that one.

In any event, the march of consolidation moves on.