Broadcom's Symantec Play Goes Too Far
By extending its private equity-like blueprint into software, the technology giant risks tainting a hard-won reputation.
Overreach could turn a winning strategy into a loser for Broadcom.
Photographer: Angel Navarrete/Bloomberg
Technology companies that target fickle consumers can die in a flash. (Juicero, anyone?) The ones that sell technology to businesses tend to hang on a bit longer.
That's why old-guard technology companies that have lost relevance and stopped growing – think BMC Software, Compuware and Tibco Software – have been ripe takeover targets in recent years for the private equity firms that take an unloved company and rehab it, or milk it for every last dime. The chip maker Broadcom Inc. and its chief executive officer, Hock Tan, have honed reputations as private equity-like seers of technology sectors that can be consolidated and pruned to extract value.