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Microsoft Trolling for New Acquisitions
NewShinyCD writes "Sources tell Valleywag that startup Ustream.tv is in advanced discussions with Microsoft to acquire the lifecasting service for more than $50 million, but there are other companies in the bidding as well. Ustream is currently raising a very large initial round of VC financing, and Microsoft is attempting to grab them prefunding for a cheap price. Our tipster also mentions that Microsoft would use Ustream as a way to promote its Adobe Flash competitor, Silverlight." Relatedly, Microsoft has also announced their intent to buy Sidekick maker Danger. Financial details of the Danger buyout were not disclosed.
A lot of the technologies you see on the market today were born at MSR. There are also tons of projects brewing in there that are sci-fi like and probably won't hit the market for a good number of years if ever. The whole point of Research (not R&D) is to give researchers funds/space to brew ideas, most of which do not make it anywhere since they're either ahead of their time or simply fail. Those few that do come through and you actually see on the market are far between, the other majority simply end up in a patent or two and get shelved/trashed, this is the nature of it.
My point is that they do come up with a lot of stuff, most of which every day consumers don't get to see. Research at any company is an expenditure and pretty much never a profit but everyone should be glad that they at least put money into it instead of only "buying/acquiring" all new ideas. I know all you Microsoft haters are disagreeing but at least try to name a few new and innovative things that have come out of Google/Apple's/IBMs Research labs and I bet you'll see that they're just as few as at Microsoft.
Which is why there's a link with them all listed..... Half of the shit in windows/zune/xbox/server/sync..... was in some way created or innovated at MSR. MSR comes up with some idea, hands it off to a product group and they put it in where it fits, whether it be the spam filter in outlook or search algorithm in live. I don't think there are any purely made by MSR products on the market other than surface and some other prototypes.