Technology companies often take seemingly odd paths in acquisitions and mergers. Sometimes the paths work out well for all parties involved, but many times smaller companies are absorbed purely for patent purposes or for their technology to be used in another manner. Currently, people are speculating as to why Google possibly bought Nest. We all know it wasn't for Google to go into the home thermostat business. Nest has something that Google wants aside from being able to turn up the heat in your house from your Android device. Conspiracy theorists will claim that Google is going to use your thermostat to spy on you?.which may be true, but it seems more likely that there is a piece of proprietary Nest software or a patent that is highly desirable for a different purpose.

On the hardware end, we have seen mergers that truly have made the mechanical drive market almost a duopoly. Seagate took over Samsung's drive operations, while Western Digital took on Hitachi. This left Toshiba as the only other major manufacturer of mechanical drives, albeit on a much smaller scale. However, Toshiba knows that the future is in SSD, not mechanical, and took a big step in purchasing OCZ. While the move may have seemed curious, given OCZ's tenuous financial situation, Toshiba knew it was a wise investment, not so much for the drives themselves, but for the Indilinx controller. Coupled with Toshiba's ability to provide the flash to the drive at a price point that OCZ could not achieve alone, it makes perfect sense. So while we have a merger of a large mainstream company taking on a small esoteric company, Toshiba is thankfully letting OCZ do what they do best, continue producing top tier enthusiast drives.