To OP... wut? do you understand business? do you understand how the mafia works? do you understand what a milk and squeeze strategy is?
the strategy is an authoritarian approach. find a market where you can call the shots and switching costs are extremely high, and where growth and competition is small. find said companies serving those markets. buy them. get rid of people . raise prices.
that's why he was interested in mainframe sh–. it's a declining market, high switching costs, no innovation in this market, companies forced to have these mainframes so squeeze them until it bleeds.. and then squeeze some more.
the thing is for software business the jury is out as to whether markets other than mainframe will behave similarly. i have my doubts but the Tan-Man can get some easy cash flow while he unloads the other part of CA (which is of little value). as far as symantec...plenty of others in the security space. so not sure if that will unfold well. an erp company might be next but most customers moving to cloud. Tan-Man will never acquire a cloud company.. but who knows.
it's all about control points and the ability to squeeze a clients balls til they bleed and shriek. then smile at them and raise their prices again in 2 years.
Tan-Man and Putin would be good buddies!