Mergers and acquisitions are not strategies. They are tactics. Case in point: Imation's 2006 acquisitions were value destroyers; its 2012 acquisitions should be value creators. The difference? The strategies behind the acquisitions. Imation -- a storage and data security company -- invented magnetic data storage. Its groundbreaking products include the first magnetic tape (1953), first tape cartridge (1971) and first 3 ½ inch floppy disk (1984).