[jackowayed]

There are notable exceptions. Heroku is still shipping awesome new stuff at a rapid clip under their Salesforce overlords. I don't know directly, but the plan at acquisition time was that they would stay pretty independent. I would guess that that helps a lot.

I think Pivotal could be one of those. Him saying "same services" suggests that EMC isn't planning on absorbing the team into something else. It helps that Pivotal is (presumably) very profitable, so there's value to leaving it alone instead of just viewing it as a source of a ton of great devs.

If it's still really Pivotal, and it just happens to be owned by EMC, they might fade much slower than the "everyone leaves within a year and a half" that we've seen so many times.

[hboon]

There are notable exceptions, but in every case of acquisition in the enterprise software space, the PR after the acquisition will always say things will remain the same, it will remain a standalone subsidiary.

But thing usually change, quickly, within a year or two.

[benackles]

There are exceptions, but only as an anomaly. Also, that doesn't really get at what's wrong with each of these exiting thoughts. Did Heroku keep shipping as a result or in spite of selling their company?

I'm not arguing against the practice of acquisitions. However, when a HUGE company buys a small team (famous for agile development) I find it hard to believe statements arguing that more resources are going to lead to "increased velocity".