The one common mistake that seems to show up time and time again is the attempt to integrate too quickly. Wall St. often has expectations that are not in the best long-term interest of a company, but is so powerful that executives are forced to act hastily. That leads to good folks leaving and some bad staying and that can quickly ruin any goodwill that the acquired company had generated in its marketplace. People used to really like companies such as Sterling, Cheyenne, and Platinum, but not after CA got a hold of them. Oracle doesn't need to be nice, and instead they can, and are, ruthless. That's why they make money like they do. People cringe when they hear one of their vendors is being acquired by a monster like Oracle, because they know that life is about to get tougher, at least financially.

Occasionally, one of these deals really works though, and that keeps everyone coming back for more. Veritas made a pretty good move buying OpenVision, which they themselves made a pretty good move buying 12 guys from Control Data Corp. because those 12 created what became NetBackup. I can't even count how many billion of dollars of revenue NetBackup has produced, or the hundreds of billions of dollars of stock value. EMC bought unknown Conley for about $50 million - and generated more than ten times that selling its PowerPath software. They also bought Data General for a billion bucks, sold some pieces off to pay for it, and they have subsequently sold more than $10 billion bucks worth of Clariions midrange arrays. And, VMware is an absolute home run for EMC. A few of those successes, and you tend forget about some of the debacles, like giving CrossStor $300 million or so and not using a single piece of what you bought, as far as I can tell. HP bought Mercury and IBM bought FileNet recently - both multi-billion dollar deals. Will they work? Only time will tell.

Finally, there are some deals that just have to happen. Later this week, Brocade and McData will have their shareholder vote, which will pass, and then they have to wait and see what the Federal Trade Commission does (see ""). The FTC should let the deal go thru, because it is not only the right thing to do, it's the only thing to do. I love Cisco, but we can't let them have a free ride in this market, and the market won't support three storage switch makers. A strong Brocade/McData will at least ensures some legitimate competition for a while, and if QLogic can make a serious move into the space, I'll sleep a little better. That integration probably won't be easy either, but at least that one has all the right things going for it.

Send me your questions -- about anything, really, to sinceuasked@computerworld.com.

Steve Duplessie founded Enterprise Strategy Group Inc. in 1999 and has become one of the most recognized voices in the IT world. He is a regularly featured speaker at shows such as Storage Networking World, where he takes on what's good, bad -- and more importantly -- what's next. For more of Steve's insights, read his blogs.