The Software Equity Group predicts there will be more tech M&A going forward. Ben Worthen over at the Wall Street Journal reports on a study by the Software Equity Group that says that while this may not be the best time for mergers & acquisitions, they expect that the number of deals is likely to stay the same in 2009, even if the dollar size goes down.Despite the downturn, Software Equity Group, an investment bank and M&A advisory firm serving the tech sector, expects deals to get done at the same rate as 2008. That opinion is based partly on the firm’s own analysis and partly on a survey that asked tech companies about their M&A plans for the coming year. (And, yes, companies like Software Equity Group make money every time they match a buyer and a seller.)On the surface, it looks like a bad time for deals. The number of software mergers and acquisitions dropped to 286 in the fourth quarter of 2008, down from more than 400 such deals in both the year-ago period and the third quarter of 2008…The trend lines suggest a prolonged period with no deals. But Ken Bender, managing director at Software Equity Group, says that software companies are just waiting to strike. Revenue growth may be slowing or declining, but the typical publicly-traded software company is still growing faster than the economy as whole, has a high operating margin, and is sitting on a pile of cash. Meanwhile many startups are struggling to raise capital. No doubt VCs are looking at their portfolio of companies and deciding which ones will have break out success in the future and which ones are candidates for consolidation. So my guess is, more consolidation. Open Source