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While Microsoft is no Oracle when it comes to acquisitions, the company has been getting accustomed to cracking open its oversized wallet.
Historically, Microsoft has focused largely on smaller deals to acquire technology, as opposed to megadeals to buy established businesses. Microsoft is, of course, in the throes of a multibillion-dollar bid for Net pioneer Yahoo.
"It's a different type of acquisition for Microsoft," Directions on Microsoft analyst Matt Rosoff said of the Yahoo bid. "It's a new way of thinking." (Rosoff is a contributor to the CNET Blog Network.)
The company has made a few larger deals over the years. (Check out the chart to see the details.)
The Internet has been the source of several of Microsoft's biggest purchases, dating back to the purchase of WebTV and Hotmail in the 1990s, both deals that set back Microsoft by several hundred million dollars.
WebTV's subscriber base of folks using their TVs to get their e-mail largely plateaued at the 1 million mark, making the deal pricey from that standpoint. However, both the technology and the people helped form the basis of the Microsoft TV unit, which now focuses on Internet Protocol television. Hotmail was left alone for years, but has assumed new prominence as part of Microsoft's broader Windows Live push. As for the economic return, Web-based e-mail has not yet proved to be a huge money maker for any of the market leaders, though Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are working hard to change that.
http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9870403-56.html?tag=nefd.lede
Historically, Microsoft has focused largely on smaller deals to acquire technology, as opposed to megadeals to buy established businesses. Microsoft is, of course, in the throes of a multibillion-dollar bid for Net pioneer Yahoo.
"It's a different type of acquisition for Microsoft," Directions on Microsoft analyst Matt Rosoff said of the Yahoo bid. "It's a new way of thinking." (Rosoff is a contributor to the CNET Blog Network.)
The company has made a few larger deals over the years. (Check out the chart to see the details.)
The Internet has been the source of several of Microsoft's biggest purchases, dating back to the purchase of WebTV and Hotmail in the 1990s, both deals that set back Microsoft by several hundred million dollars.
WebTV's subscriber base of folks using their TVs to get their e-mail largely plateaued at the 1 million mark, making the deal pricey from that standpoint. However, both the technology and the people helped form the basis of the Microsoft TV unit, which now focuses on Internet Protocol television. Hotmail was left alone for years, but has assumed new prominence as part of Microsoft's broader Windows Live push. As for the economic return, Web-based e-mail has not yet proved to be a huge money maker for any of the market leaders, though Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are working hard to change that.
http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9870403-56.html?tag=nefd.lede
