3. Oracle-BEA: $8.5 billion

BEA stared down and got a better deal in January than the from a few months earlier. Some said at the outset that IBM might also be a winner from this deal by exploiting fear, uncertainty and doubt surrounding the middleware vendor's integration into Oracle. In July, Oracle spelled out its : All BEA products will continue under existing support timelines, with "no forced migration at all," Oracle CEO Charles Phillips said at the time. 

But moving forward, the combined company's middleware and infrastructure catalog will be broken into three categories: strategic; "continue and converge" and "maintenance," said Thomas Kurian, senior vice president, Oracle Fusion Middleware. Oracle also specified that BEA WebLogic Server will be Oracle's lead apps server, even though Oracle will continue to work on its own.

4. CenturyTel-Embarq: $5.8 billion

CenturyTel, a local exchange carrier and ISP that is based in Louisiana and that operates in 25 states, says merging with will give it a combined total of 8 million access lines, 2 million broadband subscribers and roughly 400,000 video subscribers. Additionally, the newly merged company would expand its reach to a total of 33 states, CenturyTel says. Not familiar with Embarq? You might know its ex-CEO: the ubiquitous Sprint CEO .