"We are intensely looking at acquisition candidates," Manning told CRMDaily.com. "Point vendors, many of which are trading at or below cash, are having a difficult time, which opens up some interesting possibilities for us.

The Right Time?

For some companies –- those few with cash in the bank -– now is the perfect time to move forward with an acquisition, Denis Pombriant, vice president and managing director of Aberdeen's CRM practice, told CRMDaily. "There are a lot of companies out there that could be had for a song," he said. "The question is whether the acquiring company can come up with the cash to purchase." But how many meet that description?

The days when companies gobbled up other firms leveraging stock for cash are over, at least for the time being. It follows that the flurry of M&A activity that characterized the IT industry a few years ago will slow down -– has slowed down -– in the current economic environment. As Pombriant said, "the situation is quite different." So -- are Pivotal's acquisitions aspirations an anomaly? Not necessarily.

Exit Strategies

"When we talk about mergers and acquisitions, what we are really talking about are exit strategies," Pombriant said. "For the last few years, the exit strategy of choice was an IPO. Now that strategy is closed off, at least temporarily, so owners and investors may look for a whole new category of what we euphemistically called "liquidity events." These can take the form of being acquired by a larger company or merging into a larger organization."

It is clear, though, that overall, the level of M&As in the CRM industry will continue to decline. The good news, at least for CRM buyers, is that those that go forward are far more likely to be strategically solid than deals that took place in the binge days of the late 1990s.

Pivotal, for example, will be releasing its next software suite with new and enhanced contact center capabilities in September. Also, it has been developing its offshore services options for customers, which ultimately means lower costs for them, Manning said. To fill in the gaps, the vendor will look toward acquisitions. "It can take a company up to two years to develop a certain capability or product road map in house," Manning explained -- "versus six months when acquiring such intellectual property from another vendor."