There was a marked upturn in merger and acquisition activity in the technology sector in 2004, with the number of deals up 23 per cent from the previous year, and total worldwide transactions totalling €155bn ($201.3bn), a report by PwC revealed.

However, the sector has not quite returned to the heyday of mega-deals. Although a handful of large deals were signed last year, such as Oracle's $10.3bn acquisition of PeopleSoft, 89 per cent of the transactions were in the mid-market, valued at between €10m and €250m.