How important are human assets vs. technology assets in a technology industry acquisition?

One would need a bit more information about the market segment and product attributes and corporate attributes for both companies to really provide a customized answer you seek.

Generically speaking human assets are very important in most merger environments. They are the value behind the company that drive the evolution of the product base.

Think of the Yugo, the folks purchased the assembly line from FIAT and then pumped out cars left right and center, even managed to export a bunch of them. But they were inappropriate for many of the markets and eventually the product failed to sustain the market.

Just getting the technology is not always a good thing, one must look at the multiple attributes of the business during evaluation, procurement and merging.

HP is HP because of its culture and similarly IBM is IBM for the same reason. Yes they may have made various acquisitions along the way to growth, but the new SBUs are nurtured and evolved into the corporate environment else the new found acquisition turns out to be a flash in the pan and gone.

There are many examples of mergers which failed miserably due to the lack of care and enforcement of sudden change on both the acquirer and the acquired.

The question is Acquired, Merged or Partnered. I would start with partnered, move to merged and eventually meld into one!