Glenn Hutchins, who is the co-chief executive of Silver Lake Partners, has a great piece in Fortune.com. Over the years, he has structured a variety of innovative private equity deals in the tech sector.

So, what is his take on the future? First of all, he said that "everyone" is to blame for the current financial turmoil (such as mortgage lenders, politicians, rating agencies, the Fed, homeowners and on and on). He does say that the tipping point was the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which deflated worldwide wealth.

With the deal market drying up, private equity firms need to find unique niches. One player that has been quite successful at this is Silver Lake Partners, which focuses primarily on tech deals. Some of its transactions include Flextronics, Avaya, Sabre Holdings and SunGard Data.

Silver Lake is now expanding its franchise. The firm recently hired Charles Giancarlo, the former Chief Development Officer at Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO). Keep in mind that he was apparently a candidate for the CEO spot.

Then today, Silver Lake announced big news -- the firm has entered a "long-term strategic partnership" with the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS). The transaction calls for a 9.9% stake in Silver Lake and there will likely be more investments in future funds.

No doubt, we will see other private equity firms move into the tech space. However, this is far from easy -- especially since Silver Lake is continuing to improve its platform.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

When Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) CEO John Chambers said this year that he was not planning on retiring from the top spot at the company he's led for quite a while, prospective mental exit flags started popping up. You see, there are some executives that wait a career or more to ascend to the CEO spot but get sidetracked when a CEO like Oracle's (NASDCAQ: ORCL) Larry Ellison or Cisco's John Chambers settle in for a decade or more of sitting in the corner office.

Such is life, but it's caused two high-profile C-level defections from Cisco this year -- the latest having been announced yesterday. Charles Giancarlo, a 14-year veteran of the company and the Chief Development Officer, announced his resignation from the company at the same time he announced that he is joining private capital firm Silver Lake Partners.

Giancarlo, who is 50, indicated that he was "fully aware of his biological clock" in announcing the decision to leave, which seems to be very amicable between himself and Cisco. Chambers, considered to be one of the best CEOs on the planet, is simply not going to leave any time soon -- and his lieutenants can't wait around forever waiting for the top spot, naturally.

Giancarlo will be missed at Cisco, no doubt -- but he won't be replaced. Cisco will turn his duties over to a new strategy group. In the call between the two men, words like "I love ya" and "You can still reconsider" were used, which is extremely rare when an executive leaves any public company. Maybe that's the testament to the culture Chambers has instilled at Cisco, which remains ranked as one of the best places in America to work.

The trend of private equity firms buying out high tech companies continues. According to Bloomberg News, Silver Lake Partners and TPG will take Avaya Inc. (NYSE: AV) private for $8.2 billion -- the biggest LBO of a computer networking firm ever.

Investors will receive $17.50 a share. That's 4.7% more than yesterday's closing price and 28% more than before speculation about a purchase surfaced on May 29.

This is the latest in a string of high tech LBOs. Recent ones include:

• Acxiom Corp. (NASDAQ: ACXM), this computer and database services provider, said May 16 it's being bought by Silver Lake and ValueAct Capital Partners LP for about $2.24 billion.
• Alltel Corp. (NYSE: AT) this fifth-biggest U.S. wireless service, agreed May 21 to be bought by TPG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) for $27.5 billion.
• CDW Corp (NASDAQ: CDWC) agreed on May 30 to be acquired by Madison Dearborn Partners LLC for $7.3 billion.

I am not sold on the competitive advantages that will result from this deal. Maybe there's some overhead to be cut but I question how much private equity is willing to invest in R&D to jump start Avaya's product pipeline.

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned in this post.

Private equity and investors in general are beginning to open up their pocketbooks for technology. Palm Inc (NASDAQ: PALM) announced a deal with Elevation Partners which agreed to invest $325 million for a 25 percent stake in Palm.

Also, Avaya Inc (NYSE: AV) is being picked up for a nice premium, $17.50 per share or $8.2 billion by Silver Lake Partners and TPG Capital.

Ciena Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN) went to market and issued $450 million in convertible debt. And earlier this year, Sun Microsystems Inc (NASDAQ: SUNW) picked up cash from Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in the form of a convertible stock.

Slowly but surely, private equity and investor interest in technology is picking up. This could be the very early stages of a big bull market run for tech stocks.

On the one hand, activist hedge funds are taking positions in companies and trying to get them to sell out. Then, there are hedge funds that protest when a buyout offer is too low.

It's certainly getting confusing -- but it's all very interesting.

Take the $2.25 billion buyout of Acxiom Corp. (NASDAQ: ACXM).

As I wrote in a post on BloggingStocks last week, the company was the target of activist hedge fund ValueAct Capital Partners. Now, the hedge fund has joined private equity firm Silver Lake Partners for the going-private transaction.

Well, Acxiom's second largest shareholder -- Millbrook Capital Management, which is a hedge fund -- is not too thrilled with the buyout offer and plans to challenge it. according to a filing with the SEC.

It's a serious problem. After all, Millbrook has an 8% stake. Also, it's probably a good bet that there are other agitated hedgies in Acxiom's stock.

In fact, Millbrook thinks the stock is worth more that $35 per share.

Yes, that's much better than the $27.10 offer, and Wall Street is thinking a higher bid will come to the table, as the shares closed today at $28.04.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Over the past year, the activist hedge fund ValueAct Capital Partners waged a proxy fight against Acxiom Corp. (NYSE: ACXM) and ultimately got a board seat. By having a board seat, not only did ValueAct have some leverage, but I'm sure had a much better understanding of the company.

Well, now for the payoff: Acxiom has agreed to a $2.25 billion buyout.

Interestingly enough, ValueAct has partnered with the traditional private equity firm Silver Lake Partners to pull off the deal.

Acxiom has extensive databases and analytics to help companies with their marketing programs. In fact, it's similar to Alliance Data Systems (NYSE: ADS), which agreed to a $7.8 billion buyout today from the Blackstone Group.

These types of companies tend to have long-term contracts and cater to necessary business functions. Thus, it makes it easier to pile on debt and do leveraged buyouts.

On news of the deal, Acxiom's stock price spiked 15.29% to $27.29 per share. Although, the buyout offer is for $27.10. Thus, it looks like the Street thinks another bidder may come to the table.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Back in December, Sabre Holdings (NYSE: TSG) announced a $4.45 billion buyout. The buyers included Silver Lake Partners and Texas Pacific Group (TPG). The price tag was a 30% premium over the past 60 trading days.

As almost ways happens, Sabre got served. There was a class-action suit as well as a derivative action lawsuit.

Did it increase the stock price? No.

But I'm sure it was lucrative for the attorneys.

This week, Sabre settled the litigation. Yes, this is something that seems to always happen. The suits are often nuisances and need to get cleared up before a deal gets done.

Although, one of the suits resulted in a reduction for the termination fee payble for TPG and Silver Lake. The fee will drop from $135 million to $80.

That's certainly a positive.

But, for the most part, I think these suits are really a nice gig for plaintiffs attorneys to rack up the fees. Add 'em to the big list of beneficiaries of the boom in private equity.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Over the past few months, there has been a ton of takeover talk about Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM). The company is certainly attractive. It has lots of cash and a strong global footprint. Today there was a report in Unstrung that says a deal could be wrapped up this week.

The buyers may actually be two major private equity firms: Texas Pacific Group and Silver Lake Partners. Of course, Palm would be a nice fit for a strategic party like Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) or Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK). In fact, a deal with Motorola may actually quell some of the ardor of its big shareholder, Carl Icahn.

To add even more drama, Palm is going to report its earnings on the 22nd. Unstrung says the offer for Palm is likely to be above $20. And, given all the suitors, I think a high price is likely. Currently, Palm is trading at $19.01.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

The biggest securities firm in Japan, Nomura Holdings, agreed to buy Instinet, which is an electronic trading firm.

It was last December that Silver Lake Partners, a private equity firm, purchased Instinet for about $208 million.

So, what did Nomura pay for Instinet? It hasn't been disclosed, but the rumor is that it was in excess of $1 billion.

If so, this would certainly qualify has a home-run deal.

But this does raise a big issue: Isn't a private equity firm supposed to fix-up and improve a company before it is sold off? Can this realistically be done in less than a year?

Well, I think this deal is a classic case of "good timing." With the onslaught of technology, stock exchanges are undergoing major changes. As a result, there has been an aggressive move to electronic approaches. It also helps that Instinet has a large list of hedge fund clients.

If a private equity firm can get a big return early, it's their duty to take it.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates InvestorOffering.com.