My own observation is that the bets hardly ever pay off. Microsoft/Nokia is a great example but there are plenty of others. Maybe it's just confirmation bias, but I have trouble thinking of one counter example.
Adobe did buy AEM "when i was little" (you know, for like 20M or something I have no idea) and it has grown to 10x as much. However that is purchasing a smaller company...kind of like venture capital investment I guess. there seem to be plenty of examples where buying companies hasn't worked out (yahoo+tumblr comes to mind, and that's only recent news).
Sorry, not familiar with the acronym AEM. But you do give me an opportunity to modify my statement - it seems that the larger and more strategic the acquisition seems, the more likely it is to fail. And even when it doesn't fail, the synergies never seem to gel - what news of Zappos lately?
