25. The Mint

The Roomba robotic housecleaner seems like a cool concept, until you see it miss spots and crash into walls. The Mint, a new robotic cleaner, ups the ante on the Roomba. It has a built-in navigation system that uses an infrared laser as a satellite-like reference point while mapping out a room, making for a more thorough, less epileptic cleaning job. All you have to do is stick a wet or dry Swiffer pad on your Mint, and let it do its job well. Take that, Roomba.

24. 3D Computer Monitor

The 3D revolution is on, and don’t think that excludes the Internet. The DuraVision FDF2301-3D, by Japanese monitor maker EIZO, is 23 inches of HD 3D without glasses. You can choose from four different kinds of 3D settings on the monitor. The clincher: each monitor will probably cost somewhere upward of $25,000.

23. Infinity I-Kitchen

Admit it. All that’s missing from your fridge is a touchscreen UI, one that lets you control its internal temperatures, make lists, find recipes, look up contacts, and basically contain all those other functions that used to live on and around your fridge door. Enlightenment Foundation Libraries’ Infinity I-Kitchen scratches this itch by making fridges more high-tech. The open-source touchscreen computer lives inside your fridge, and, as a Linux-based app, is open for modification. The screen, though, will only live in an Electrolux fridge–take that as you will.

22. The Cow Manure Generator

Image: Foxypar4/Flickr

Methane is one nasty greenhouse gas. It’s over 20 times more potent to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. But Chinese innovators have figured out how to mitigate atmospheric damage while generating electricity with their new generator, which converts the methane gas from fermented cow manure into electricity. The power plant, which runs on GE gas-powered generators, will “generate enough electricity to meet the needs of 3,500 American-size households,” according to MIT Technology Review. It also creates manure that is “safer than raw manure.” You need an awful lot of manure to make this technology cost-effective, so Huishan Dairy, where the pilot project is taking place, is collecting additional bovine waste from 20 other nearby farms.

21. The Evolved Location-Based App

Location-based apps are still a little bit primitive, but they won’t be that way much longer if Location Labs’ Sparkle platform has its way. Its geolocation technology lets developers build smart apps that can find, identify, and detect motion and velocity of any mobile device. Combine that with Sparkle’s geofencing and messaging technology, and you have something like location-based apps 3.0. Such apps could take customization to the next level, automatically letting you know when your kids are getting near your house, you’re near a business that can give you a special discount, there’s a home for rent nearby, etc. The opportunities are boundless.

20. The Home Wind Energy Generator

What if you could capture and generate energy with the same turbine? That’s what Earthtronics’ Honeywell Wind Turbine does, and it aims to redefine the wind power market with it. Magnets and stators in the turbine’s outer ring “capture power at the blade tips where speed is greatest,” according to the website, making the turbine productive even in low winds. The magnets on the turbine’s blade tips pass through copper coils in the frame, allowing the turbine to generate electricity at the same time it captures it.

In return, the turbine offers the most bang per kilowatt-hour buck for its size and class. The Honeywell costs $6,495, but if you factor in government rebate programs of 30% or more, and the fact that the unit will produce roughly 20% of a single family home’s energy in a relatively windy place in a year, according to this Inhabitat article, the price starts looking pretty good.

19. Samsung LED Thin 3D TV

There’s 3D, and there’s thin. It was just a matter of time before they came together; Samsung has done it with its 7.2mm (about 1/3 of an inch) thick LED LCD TV, the 9000 series. The set comes with glasses and lets you turn your 2D content into 3D, so you don’t need to give up your favorite 2D shows.

18. Biofuel-Powered Commercial Flights

Image: Steve Jurvetson/Flickr

The world’s first biofuel-powered passenger flights will happen in April 2011 between Frankfurt and Hamburg, courtesy of German airliner Lufthansa. The fuel will be a 50% vegetable oil blend thought to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80%. The biofuel flights are part of a six-month German government study on how biofuels impact aircraft performance in the long term. Other airlines, including Continental, Air New Zealand, Japan Air and KLM have been testing biofuels as well.

17. BendDesk

This 2 projector, 3-camera curved screen transforms the traditional desk into a tactile computer. The BendDesk’s “integrated workspace” lets you sort photos and files and play games with your hands, even along the unit’s curved spine. Bonus: You can put coffee, papers and other stuff on the bottom half of the desk, just as you would a normal desk. It’s like the upcoming Microsoft Surface tabletop computer, but cooler.

16. 3D HD Camcorder

All that was missing from 3D was a personal camcorder. Here it is, courtesy of Panasonic. It’s basically a 2D camera with a 3D conversion lens. The lens mimics human eyes’ natural visual disparity by recording left and right images simultaneously, the same way our eyes work in concert to perceive depth and solidity. Connect the video to a 3D TV, and you can watch your own life in three dimensions.

15. CO2 Electroreduction

Canadian startup Mantra Energy proposes to take popular “clean coal” technology carbon capture sequestration one step further. Their patented ERC (electro-reduction of carbon dioxide) technology lets factories capture carbon dioxide, then reduce it into formate and formic acid, chemicals that factories can then sell for profit on the open market. Mantra even promises to take those chemicals off factories’ hands. This new form of carbon capture with an integrated profitable vertical market just might be what carbon emitters are looking for.

14. The Flying Car

The Terrafugia could be the closest we’ve come to the Jetsons. This light sports aircraft’s wings fold, it burns automotive gas, and it’s street legal with ground speeds of up to 65 mph. In the air, it goes up to 115 mph. It fits two people and even has dual airbags. Taking it off in the emergency lane during a big traffic jam probably isn’t legit, but it sure is a tempting thought, isn’t it? For $194,000, this puppy can be all yours.

13. KOR-Fx

With 3D becoming a new standard, the only thing missing from a movie or gaming experience is sensation. KOR-Fx, a collar that sends vibrations through your body via your chest, takes care of that missing touch. Plug it into your audio system, perch it on your chest, and prepare to get your neural pathways activated by this clever device, which lets you do things like feel gunshot wounds and T-rex footfalls, according to ConsumerReports. It comes out next February for a little shy of $200. It’s like having D Box MFK seats, which move in movie theaters, right on your own couch.

12. Miniature Cell Phone Towers for the Office

All those wires that snake around office buildings, behind walls and around ceilings, could become a thing of the past with mini cell-phone towers, or femtocells. Stick one of these devices inside your office building, and it will operate everything wireless inside, and even recognize when employees walk in, according to MIT Technology Review. These bad boys are more powerful than the little towers that, say, AT&T has been trying to pawn off on people who can’t get reception for home use. Businesses won’t need wired phones any longer with these new towers, which have a 50-meter reception radius and no-drop handoff between zones. They can also mimic today’s wired phone systems by routing calls and data.

11. Cell Phone Hotel Keys

Goodbye, hotel key cards. Hello, cell phone key. Thank close-range radio chips for this innovation, currently being pioneered in Sweden by lockmaker Assa Abloy. The radio technology, dubbed Near Field Communication (NFC), lets you check into a hotel via your phone, at which point its chip is activated. Viola, key. You then hold your cell phone next to your room door to unlock it. If you lose your phone, room access can be revoked. The technology also works with key-card locks, which are enabled by radio, according to the magazine Sci-Tech. No smartphone, no problem.

10. Electric Nanomotor

Science fiction is becoming reality with this nanomotor, which could eventually operate nanofactories—tiny assembly unites that create atomically precise chemical components by putting together different molecules. This, in turn, would enable the mass-manufacture of precision nanomaterials.

This tiny electric motor, which is now being experimentally built, has a rotor made of the molecule anthracene, which spins around an axle made of two ethynyl molecules. The axle, in turn, receives alternating current from two electrodes, which makes the anthracene rotor turn, according to New Scientist magazine. Unlike other nanomotors, which run off of light or magnetism, the anthracene motor’s electric current enables scientists to control the “speed and continuity of motion,” leading to better control over temperatures “at the molecular level,” according to the abstract. Thus, there’s more control over the manufacturing process. Sci-fi, here we come.

9. Shape-Shifting Touchscreen

Image: A6U571N/Flickr

Microsoft wants your touchscreen to touch you back. It recently published a patent, filed in 2009, that describes a touch screen in which you can feel texture and shape, making you feel like you’re actually touching an object even when you’re not. Ultraviolet wavelengths beneath the screen’s pixels control the shapes that the polymer coating on top of the screen makes, enabling you to feel images, interfaces, or a virtual keyboard. It’s not currently intended for tablets, according to CNET, but we’ll see how long that lasts.

8. Power Plastic

Most solar panels are big, bulky things that sit on rooftops. Konarka has found the antidote in its Power Plastic, an 0.5mm thick, 3oz, wrappable, hangable, rollable sheeting that manufacturers can build into their products. Think laptop bags that recharge while you travel, a tent with a sun-powered generator, window shades that make electricity, and much more. The opportunities are nearly endless for this neat sheet of solar charge.

7. Quantum Dot LED Display

Currently, LCD screens on TVs, phones and computers filter out more than 90% of the light they produce, making them terribly inefficient, according to the MIT Technology Review. Quantum dots, nanomaterials that turn backlight into colors that match display filters, cure this problem. LG will integrate the technology into its new products, leading to better energy efficiency, improved battery life and better color. QLEDs, as they’re called, still have lots of potential. In the future, they may be twice as energy-efficient as current LEDs, and they can be printed on thin substrates, making them cost-efficient to manufacture.

6. The Mobile Fuel Cell

As sexy as fuel cells are, they still haven’t gone mainstream yet. Lilliputian Systems wants to change that with the Silicon Power Cell, a handheld portable fuel cell that uses butane cartridges to charge your mobile devices via a USB port. The butane cartridges are replaceable for $99 (plus a few bucks for recycling); each can charge a device about 22 times. The cell emits about 3 watts of power, enough for a smartphone or other small device. And it’s airport-approved, so no worries about having the TSA yank your precious fuel cell.

5. GM Mosquitoes

Dengue fever kills about 25,000 people a year, and it’s spreading. What if you could nip this fatal nuisance in the proboscis? That’s just what scientists have done by introducing genetically modified, infertile males to dengue-infected swarms of mosquitoes. Females won’t produce offspring with these guys, even after mating with them. Studies have found that dengue-infected populations fell by 80%. The males are engineered to die off naturally, and females only mate within their species, so the GM traits are self-limiting.

4. Nintendo Glasses-Free 3DS

Gamers are biting their nails for the new Nintendo DS, which looks like the old one, but is actually on 3D steroids. The top of its two panels shows images in 3D, so you don’t need glasses or 3D TV sets to use it. It will cost about $300 in Japan. (Note that Apple also patented a glasses-free 3D system in 2006—could the 3D iPad be next?)

3. Robotic Walking Pants

Exoskeletons are walking their way into mainstream medicine. One of the most impressive of these is the ReWalk, a pair of leg braces with sensors and motorized joints that let paraplegics walk with crutches, according to Sci-Tech Today. The $100,000, 35-pound device is a suit of sorts, held up by a harness and charged by a backpack you wear. After you pull on the suit, sensors in the legs react when you lean and move your upper body. And yes, it does make robotic clanging noises when you move, according to Sci-Tech. Still, it’s an impressive step forward for paraplegics.

2. Graphene

Two University of Manchester physicists recently peeled a single atomic layer of carbon off a piece of graphite, which is otherwise known as the stuff inside of pencils. Scientists then found that graphene, as the stuff is known, actually has some game-changing properties. It is better transistor than silicon, conducts heat and electricity like a champ, is stronger than any other material in the world, and can revolutionize DNA sequencing. No wonder those two Manchester physicists won the Nobel Prize for Physics. Move out, silicon, the Graphene Age is next.

1. Porsche 918 Spyder

The Porsche 918 Spyder is a 218 horsepower V8 supercar that goes from 0 to 60 in 3.2 seconds. It can top out at 198 mph. The clincher: It’s a hybrid, with 78 mpg at normal speeds. You can adapt it to drive on all of its three electric motors, and even press an E-Boost button that sends more juice to the electric motors if you’re running low. The car, which comes in three different types of hybrid, runs for an estimated price of $550K, according to Popular Science, but the actual price hasn’t been set yet. Drool.

District Judge Louis Stanton said in his ruling: “Mere knowledge of prevalence of such activity in general is not enough. The provider need not monitor or seek out facts indicating such activity.”

Media conglomerate Viacom said it planned to appeal against the decision. Viacom called the ruling “fundamentally flawed” and said it reflected neither Congress’s intent behind copyright laws nor recent Supreme Court decisions.

Forbes’ Andy Greenberg put together four good business lessons from the Google/Viacom ruling–it’s worth taking a look.

Australian supermarket chain Woolworths has gone too far with its logo, according to Apple’s intellectual property lawyers. Concerned that “‘consumers may not be able to differentiate between the two brands,” Apple lawyers have told Australia’s intellectual property regulators to ban the logo. Mashable has more:

When it comes to defending their trademarks and logos, no company is more fervent than Apple. If they could challenge Victoria School of Business and Technology for having a logo too similar to theirs, then you can certainly expect them to sue Woolworths, especially if Woolworths’ trademark application is a blanket one, extending to electrical goods and technology.

Woolworths has tried to avoid using the word “apple”, and the designer of the logo, Hans Hulsbosch, claims Apple is taking things too far. ”Based on this logic, they would have to take action against every fruit-seller,” he said. However, one has to admit that the two logos have similarities, and that there’s actually a good chance (unlike the Victoria School of Business and Technology’s case) of Woolworths selling devices similar to those sold by Apple.

If Woolworths logo really looks like an apple, does that mean Apple owns the rights to all apple symbols? Apple’s legal chest-thumping seems like a stretch.

Most doctors will write you a prescription for a cheaper generic drug in place of the same drug that’s still under patent as a more expensive name brand. There’s just no need to pay the premium. But generics aren’t always available even when the patent for the original drug has run out. The reason is because of what’s known in the pharmaceutical industry as ‘pay to delay’ payments.

These ‘pay to delay’ agreements are settlements where a brand-name drug manufacturer pays a generic competitor to abandon a patent challenge and therefore delay entering the market in direct competition. According to the Federal Trade Commission, the tactic has become a common practice in the pharmaceutical industry .

In a speech last month before the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said that eliminating these the pay to delay payments is a top priority of the Commission because doing so would save consumers $3.5 billion a year. He also stated that the US federal government pays about one-third of all prescription drug costs.

Pending legislation (H.R. 1706, the Protecting Consumer Access to Generic Drugs Act of 2009) would ban or restrict what Leibowitz describes as anti-competitive patent settlements to control prescription drug costs, restore generic competition, and help pay for healthcare reform.

The Hatch-Waxman Act was designed to make it easier for generic drugs to enter the market while at the same time protecting brand-name manufacturers with patent protection crucial to ensuring they continue costly research. While the legislation initially worked to lower prices for consumers, drug companies soon realized they could delay generic competition by paying them not to enter the market.

Image Credit: bartificial, Flickr

Last Friday afternoon I came home to an excited message on my answering machine (yeah, I still have one of those…) My mother wanted to know if I’d seen Oprah, if I knew about the Kindles. At first I thought she was talking about some unique family, like the Duggars. But later that day I heard the news that Oprah Winfrey had once again sprinkled her magical TV dust over the publishing industry.

First she just suggested them….

Oprah started driving book sales over a decade ago with her selections for Oprah’s Book Club. It quickly became apparent that a nod from The Great One could ensure an author’s livelihood, and even fame, for years to come. Just ask James Frey. Okay – bad example.

Next, she took them online…

Oprah’s series of online classes, or interviews, with Eckhart Tolle took his book, A New Earth, from certain obscurity to a worldwide phenomena. (In the process it got her branded as the anti-Christ in some circles, but that’s another story.)

Then she gave them away…

Last summer Winfrey teamed up with recurring Oprah Show guest Suze Orman to offer Orman’s latest book, Women & Money, for free in digital format. Orman professed that the offer was “not about getting people to buy the book, but getting them to read it”. However, the move didn’t exactly hurt sales. Instead, it built excitement for the book across other formats. Over a million copies were downloaded.

And now, she’s fully digital…

I have my doubts that a woman who held out on getting a cell phone until 2008 suddenly gets so gadget-happy that she devotes the good part of an hour of television and her brand to the digital book reader Kindle. However “life changing” the device actually is or is not for Oprah, one thing is certain: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is happy about it.

Who knows, my mom may even buy one.

From Reuters:

“Fool’s Gold” star Kate Hudson has been sued by a firm that says hair care products she developed with hair stylist-to-the-stars David Babaii are based on ideas for using volcanic ash that the firm developed.

But Babaii went on to use a company called Universal Packaging Systems Inc to develop the products — using the volcanic ash component. Hudson promoted the product in a 2007 interview with Vogue magazine and said she was one of the developers, the lawsuit states.

220 Laboratories’ allegations against Hudson, Babaii and Universal included misappropriation of trade secrets, fraud and breach of contract. The company is seeking an injunction to block David Babaii for WildAid from using its “trade secrets” in the sale of hair care products.

According to the legal documents, 220 Labs had researched and developed a product for Babaii over a period of about nine months, based on an oral contract. During this time, 220 Labs developed at least 10 custom products for Babaii, for which they sent him samples. They also sent Babaii ingredients lists, ingredients stories, pricing information, marketing ideas, and promotional footage.

Almost a year after Babaii and 220 Labs had entered into their relationship, a 220 Labs competitor called Universal requested volcanic ash samples from the company, purportedly for a hair care line. 220 Labs sent them the samples.

Babaii then released the product, called David Babaii for WildAid–featuring pictures of an earthy-looking Kate Hudson cavorting with baby wildcats—without giving 220 Labs the kickback it felt it deserved.

Thus, the lawsuit.

I had a couple of thoughts on this case. First, can you sue someone based on an oral contract? It turns out that oral contracts are legally just as valid as written agreements. The problem is proving that they exist, or proving the terms. Lawyers use plaintiff or defendant action following the contract to prove its existence.

After you enter an oral contract in California, you only have two years to sue someone for breaching it. No wonder 220 Labs jumped on the case.

Secondly, why would you send your competitor a sample of your proprietary ingredient (in this case, volcanic ash)? According to the Economic Espionage Act of 1996,

Effective enforcement of laws governing unauthorized disclosure of proprietary or trade secret information generally requires that the owner of this information must have taken reasonable measures to safeguard it from unauthorized disclosure.

Sending a proprietary ingredient to your competitor doesn’t sound like a reasonable protective measure to me. Nor does handling a large account for nine months without a written contract.

Does 220 Labs have a case? Yes. So does Kate Hudson. I think both parties had it coming.

Proud to be an American? There’s reason. We have a beautiful country filled with natural and man-made wonders. We’re home to some of the world’s most talented business innovators. And we, the people, reserve the right to sue anyone we want for anything we want.

You’re next, Victoria’s Secret. Because there’s nothing like an unruly thong to provoke a latent lawsuit. How the woman damaged her eye with her underwear is beyond me. But does she really need Vic’s to reimburse her for it? According to ABC News,

The thong, a Victoria’s Secret Sexy Little Thing low-rise v-string, had a heart-shaped pendant attached to the fabric with a metal fastener, according to the lawsuit. When Patterson was changing after work, the metal piece snapped, creating a “slingshot effect,” and either the pendant or the metal piece “cut her eye…”

Here are 15 more of the nation’s dumbest corporate lawsuits. Just in case you needed reminding:

15. A Florida woman sued a guide-dog school because a blind man being guided by one of the dogs stepped on her foot.

14. A man sued McDonald’s for “failing to warn customers about the dangers of eating and driving.” The impetus? A man who’d spilled a milkshake on his lap at the drive-thru collided with the defendant’s car.

13. An Idaho college student decided to moon his friends, and fell out the window as a result. So he sued the college for not providing enough warning signs in upper-story windows.

12. A dry cleaner lost Roy Pearson’s pants, causing him great mental suffering. He alluded to the dry cleaner’s “satisfaction guarantee” as an excuse to sue the company for $67 million.

11. A man from Montana sued Viacom for plagiarizing his name. The man’s legal name is Jack Ass, and Jack Ass sued because the TV show Jackass infringed on the copyright and trademark of his name. And “defamed his good character.” (The man, nee Bob Craft, changed his name to Jack Ass in 1997 in order to “raise awareness about drunken driving.”)

10. A convenience store worker in West Virginia injured her back while opening a jar of pickles. The store awarded her $2,699,000 in punitive damages, $130,066 in compensation and another $170,000 for her emotional distress.

9. A couple from Columbia, SC lost their son to a killer whale. He was found dead and naked on the back of an orca whale at SeaWorld Orlando. He had drowned after sneaking into the whale tank and going for a swim with the killer whale. The couple sued SeaWorld Orlando, “alleging the dangerous orca was portrayed as a huggable stuffed toy. Attorney Patricia Sigman said SeaWorld is legally liable because it portrayed the killer whale as human loving.”

8. A pair of Chicago attorneys filed a class action suit against Penthouse magazine, because they failed to “see tennis sensation Anna Kournikova without her racket and tennis outfit.” The damages? $8.99 each, or the price of the magazine.

7. Consumer Meredith Berkman filed a class-action suit against Robert’s Foods, who make a snack called Pirate’s Booty, for $50 million. Four months prior, Robert’s had recalled its product because food labels understated calories by 27 and fat by 6 grams. Berkman’s suit claimed “emotional distress” and “weight gain…mental anguish, outrage and indignation…The complaint claims to represent all consumers who ruined their diets and had to spend more time at the gym because they ate mislabeled Pirate’s Booty.”

6. In 1995, passengers on an LA-New York American Airlines flight experienced extreme turbulence for 20 seconds. Passengers sued the airline for the “psychological impact of the twenty eight seconds of terror.” Their reward? $2 million.

5. Nita Bird, a woman having outpatient surgery, had something go wrong during surgery. Surgeons rushed her down the hallway into another room in order to save her life. Her two daughters saw their mother being rushed down the hallway, appearing to be in extremely poor physical condition. The two daughters sued the doctors and the hospital for causing them emotional distress. They shouldn’t have had to see Mom like that, and it was the hospital’s fault. That case was lost–in the California Supreme Court.

4. Bennie Casson had a stripper slam him on the head and neck with her two 40-pound breasts, contusing and bruising his neck. He sued the strip club for $200,000 for the mental anguish, indignity, and emotional distress he experienced after the incident.

3. Employees at the Las Vegas Hilton and Mandalay Bay Hotel kept handing a drunk man money to gamble with. He had a hard night, losing more than $1 million. So he sued the two hotels for supposedly knowing he was “drunk as a skunk” and continuing to give him gambling money anyway.

2. A British dollmaker with dark tastes decided to turn Barbie into a “Dungeon Doll” in rubber bondage dress and a helmet. Mattel sued the dollmaker for copyright infringement. The judge wrote them off, claiming the Dungeon Doll poses no threat to regular Barbie sales.

1. Yup, here it is again. The infamous 1992 McDonald’s coffee case. Stella Liebeck spilled McDonald’s coffee on her lap in the drive-thru, scalding her genitals, buttocks, and inner thigh. She received more than $2.7 million in damages. (To her credit, she wasn’t the first one to have trouble with Micky D’s scalding coffee.)

(Source: Stupid Lawsuit Collection)

New research shows that co-workers hoard their best ideas.

Have you ever asked a colleague for information, only to have them ignore your request? Did you feel they were purposely avoiding you or only pretending to be ignorant? You may have been right.

Catherine Connelly, assistant professor of human resources & management at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University, has found that employees often protect their knowledge and will even take steps to hide it from co-workers

In a world where every interview with a Fortune 500 will quote him/her saying that knowledge sharing is important, the opposite is happening. Yet more proof that something isn't right in the world of business, particularly in the way(s) that we work.

Why can't speed dating, speed networking, etc. take place online using Skype or something similar? Here's how it would work. I go to a site and set up my 'meeting.' It can be for dating, networking, job interviews, or whatever. I can set a price to participate, or I can make it free. I can set the number of people that can sign up. Then, at the predetermined meeting time, the software takes control and controls the switching. At the pre-set time limit (1 min, 2 min, 5 min, etc.) the software shuts down the existing connection and matches everyone up with someone new for a new time period. Maybe it calls using Skype IDs, or maybe you have to log on to the company's website. The software controls the speed networking part of the project. Of course, the website is free for events less than 30 minutes with 10 or fewer people, and you pay for larger and more complex events. If an event organizer charges a fee, the site takes a cut when people register.

I don't think there is anything like this out there, but it is something I would use if someone built it. Actually, I would try to build it but I've got too many other ideas on my plate right now, and the amount of caffeine I have a day is probably already in the not-healthy-in-the-long-run range.

Companies who once were acquisition-crazy, says Chaudhuri, soon realized that while buying technologies was easy, making them pay off was not. Indeed, researchers looking at mergers and acquisitions in tech fields have acknowledged for years that the challenges of successful acquisitions are significant, as are the challenges of post-acquisition integration. Yet they have also suggested that the strategy of buying young companies with early-stage technologies in emerging markets is a good way of hedging against the possibility of missing out on major technological advances. Further, they have generally agreed that once a purchasing company finds an integration strategy that works well, this strategy can be applied to almost any acquisition.

But after spending two years studying the M&A activity of three top communications equipment and software firms, Chaudhuri says those assumptions are wrong. "What I did was reframe how we look at acquisitions," he notes.

So much has been written about the problems with acquisitions and how they contribute so little to bottom line that I have to reach one of two conclusions.

1)All this "M&A" doesn't add value is wrong, and only focuses on a handful of high profile deals that are bad

or

2)Corporate leaders realize most acqusitions fail, but they think they will do a better job than everyone else. This is the "yes, but" strategy – I realize most people fail at this but I'm different. It makes sense, because you need some of that attitude to rise to the C-level in most companies. I just wonder how many executives/companies analyze their past M&A decisions to see if their supposed value was ever realized.