Heightened activity and global expansion in the multifaceted tech dealmaking world has Wall Street jockeying for position. Here's who's leading the charge.

For months, Tom Weisel — like several of his investment-banking colleagues who regularly exchange takeover rumors over egg-white omelets at Buck’s in Woodside, California, or lunch at the Sundeck on Sand Hill Road in nearby Menlo Park — had heard rumblings that Microsoft was quietly talking with Yahoo about a possible combination.

After all, if you’ve been around the technology space as long as the high-octane dealmaker of 40 years has, you’ve come to learn that everyone talks to just about everyone in the close-knit Silicon Valley circuit. But no one — not even Weisel — was prepared for the shockwaves Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent through the tech industry on January 31 when he called up Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang to inform him that Microsoft would attempt to embrace Yahoo in an audacious $45 billion bear hug the next morning.

“It wasn’t so long ago that you didn’t see such big deals — and certainly not hostile ones — in the tech space, but you look now, and this was just part of the constant stream of M&A deals on a daily basis,” says Weisel, 66, who heads Thomas Weisel Partners, a growing tech-oriented banking boutique based in Menlo Park. “Even with this market meltdown, it’s happening all the time. The big guys have a lot of cash, and they’re looking for vertical integration. That offer just reinforced what’s been happening in the tech space.”

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