Are you patronizing a startup or a big IT company?

It appears big IT companies have picked up a new trick from food and drink conglomerates. There are plenty of seeming quirky upstart food and drink brands out there that are in fact owned by large companies.

It appears there is a new trend with big IT companies launching what are essentially brands and masquerading them as startups. Some of of these companies were indeed startups at some point.

Pivotal is one that comes to mind, they belong to EMC (if there ever was a non-startup)...LightCMS (Netsuit), Asana (Microsoft), Podio (Citrix).

Please post others that you know of.