Mergers and Acquisitions
Sue Mickel and Karen Mackey
smickel@atomictangerine.com and kmackey@best.com

It seems you can't open the newspaper or turn on the TV without hearing about how company A is merging with company B or company C is acquiring company D. Mergers and acquisitions have become a recognized contemporary approach to both company growth and research. The goal of many startups is no longer to become a big company in their own right, but rather to be acquired by an established leader. Mergers and acquisitions will affect most of us that work for a company. Most of us will endure several during our careers. In this SPIN meeting, Sue Mickel and Karen Mackey will lead an informal presentation and discussion on the topic. They will cover such questions as what can the merger or acquisition mean for software development process? What happens to the company culture?

Sue Mickel, author of "There's a Merger in Your Future" in the Jan/Feb issue of IEEE Software, is a director at AtomicTangerine, a venture consulting firm specializing in emerging technologies. AtomicTangerine is a spinoff of SRI International and is located in Menlo Park, CA. Sue previously worked for Rational Software Corp. where she helped to develop the Rational Unified Process and lived through 6 mergers within 5 years. She has also worked for General Electric developing software systems for aerospace applications. She has a BS and MS in Computer Science from the Pennsylvania State University and an MBA from Santa Clara University. She can be reached at smickel@atomictangerine.com.

Karen Mackey, editor of Culture at Work column in IEEE Software, is a software process engineer at Cisco Systems, where she has been actively involved in integrating new acquisitions. Karen previously worked for Lockheed Martin, Lotus (as it was acquired by IBM), TRW, and Bell Labs (during the divestiture.) She has a BS in Math and an MS and PhD in Computer Science from the Pennsylvania State University. She can be reached at kmackey@best.com.