Google topping tech M&A market in 2010

But last October, CEO Eric Schmidt announced "We're open for business, making strategic acquisitions, both large and small," and he has not gone back on his word. So far, Google is leading the M&A market in terms of the number of acquisitions, according to data from Dow Jones VentureSource.

As previously reported in Network World, in 2010 Google's purchases include BumpTop, maker of technology for giving desktops a 3D interface; social search vendor Aardvark; reMail, which makes an iPhone app for searching Gmail and IMAP e-mail accounts; Web-based photo editing vendor Picnik; the Microsoft Office add-on collaboration tool DocVerse; mobile phone application startup Plink; Agnilux, stealthy hardware startup formed by ex-Apple/PA Semi employees; and Episodic, which makes live video streaming technology that should complement YouTube.

Google acquisitions announced in 2009 include video compression vendor On2; security vendor reCAPTCHA; VoIP vendor Gizmo5; online ad vendor Teracent; and AppJet, which made a document editing tool called EtherPad.