CompTIA (the Computing Technology Industry Association) and its SoftwareCEO portal have issued a research report showing a substantial drop in high-tech mergers, acquisitions and IPOs. The stats didn’t surprise The VAR Guy. But the findings are a timely, interesting read nonetheless. When will the high-tech IPO market improve? The VAR Guy offers a guess — along with a look at three companies poised to test the IPO waters.

First, the stats from CompTIA and SoftwareCEO. According to a press release:

And let’s be honest: High-tech companies that went public in late 2007 and 2008 haven’t had much fun. Anybody else get burned by NetSuite and Rackspace shares?

Channel Mergers Continue

Although CompTIA and SoftwareCEO note a drop in high-tech M&A activity, The VAR Guy’s sister site — MSPmentor — sees a feeding frenzy starting, as managed service providers begin to buy up one another. (See the MSPmentor M&A Tracker for details.)

Admittedly, those MSP deals typically involve small, privately held companies. Bigger acquisitions — where Oracle, Microsoft, IBM and Cisco scoop up rivals — have been slow to materialize.

Who’s Going Public, And When?

Looking ahead,  The VAR Guy doesn’t expect IPO activity to accelerate until at least Q4 2010 — assuming financial markets stabilize by that time. So, which companies will test the IPO markets? Here are three prime possibilities — thought each fast-growing company could also be a prime target for takeover…

Oops. Got to run. The VAR Guy’s broker is on the line. Time to see how much our resident blogger’s net worth has dropped this week…

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