Can you name, say, three notable software businesses whose advantage was hard-to-replicate tech?
It's the exception, not the rule though.
Google is pretty true, though.
Just this week Intel bought Havana labs for 2B due to their AI chip hardware.
Also, look at what AMD is doing to Intel. This is pure tech play (and pure moat).
The underlying rule in play, is that the tech business is bound to "leapfrogging", I.e. a better technology can destroy companies almost overnight (see the case of Nokia). So hard tech is more important than customers.
Look what Tesla is doing to GM, etc.
As for billion dollar acquisitions.... Visio, GitHub, Yammer, LinkedIn, Instagram, Parse, etc.... shit-tons of them are done for market reasons.
weird, I must be thinking of somebody else. Since it would make no sense for you to try to take both of those sides at once.