Google is a little more than half a billion dollars lighter in the wallet after acquiring 27 companies in the third quarter, including a $151 million cash acquisition of Zagat, a popular restaurant review guide, the sultan of search revealed in a regulatory filing this week. For the fiscal year to date, Google has spent a total of $1.4 billion acquiring 57 companies, with three months left to go.
Well here's a bit of a shocker. A company called LSI has signed a definitive agreement to acquire SandForce, makers of all those high-speed solid state drive (SSD) controllers that are so popular in the performance category. Most people assumed it would be a company like Intel, or even Corsair who would eventually swoop in and scoop SandForce up, just as OCZ did with Indilinx.
Oracle today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire RightNow, a leading provider of cloud-based customer service, for $43 per share. That puts the acquisition at about $1.5 billion net of RightNow's cash and debt, Oracle said in a statement. RightNow's Board of Directors unanimously approved the deal, which is expected to close by the end of the year or early 2012.
It's been nearly five months since Microsoft announced plans to acquire Skype for $8.5 billion, so why hasn't it happened yet? For the simple reason of waiting for regulatory approval. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission approved the merger back in June, and now so have regulators from the European Union who determined the deal "would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area."
The former peer-to-peer file 
On the surface, Netflix’s recent stumblings could lead one to believe that CEO Reed Hastings has taken a swig of HP CEO Leo Apotheker’s crazy juice. Raising prices? Splitting off the DVD business? What kind of craziness is that? Today, one analyst issued a note saying that rather than being the crazy kind of crazy, Netflix’s moves may instead be a more sneaky and clever kind of crazy, intended to make the video service a juicy acquisition target for Amazon.
Network chip maker Broadcom announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase NetLogic Microsystems for $50 a share, making the deal worth approximately $3.7 billion and ranking as Broadcom's biggest acquisition to date. NetLogic is a fabless semiconductor company that specializes in high-performance processors for communication and media rich applications.
For whatever reason, Samsung is a company that keeps coming up whenever there's speculation about an acquisition. There was chatter that Samsung might be interested in Hewlett-Packard's PC business, followed by rumors that it will chase HP's webOS instead, of which the OEM 
The European culinary scene has Michelin stars; in America, restaurants live and die by their Zagat ratings. The firm surveys millions of consumers about 350,000-plus establishments around the world and uses the results to issue a numerical rating on a thirty-point scale. Zagat’s old, Zagat’s everywhere, and Zagat’s well-trusted. And now it’s part of Google.
They say to strike while the iron's hot, and that's exactly what Sprint is doing as it attempts to block AT&T from merging with T-Mobile. Less than a week ago, the U.S. Department of Justice 
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