Mergers and acquisitions related to the Internet of Things (IoT) continue to shatter records, according to a new report from 451 Research. Buyers so far this year have spent $14.8 billion (€13 billion) to purchase 39 IoT-related companies, surpassing the $14.3 billion spent for 62 such companies in all of 2014, which itself was a record-breaking year. Semiconductor-related acquisitions have driven the bulk of spending so far in 2015 with ARM, Intel and NXP each announcing two or more deals largely driven by IoT-related position taking. The largest deal of the period, NXP's $11.8 billion acquisition of Freescale Semiconductor, was positioned as a consolidation of leaders that will focus its scale and reach on key IoT growth markets led by connected cars. Release