Slashdot Mirror
10 Microsoft Acquisitions and What They Mean Now
FrankPoole writes "CRN takes a look at the past five years of Microsoft's acquisition history, which totals $13 billion and more than 7,000 new employees, and highlights 10 deals and how they've affected the software giant. While some larger acquisitions stand out for better or worse, such as Danger and aQuantive, there are some smaller, blink-and-you'll-miss-it deals that have proved pivotal for Microsoft's push into new areas such as virtualization. And Microsoft's recent acquisition track record may lend credence to the heavy criticism levied against the company by former employees like Dick Brass."
"CRN takes a look at the past five years of Microsoft's acquisition history, which totals $13 billion and more than 7,000 new employees, and highlights 10 deals and how they've affected the software giant. While some larger acquisitions stand out for better or worse, such as Danger and aQuantive, there are some smaller, blink-and-you'll-miss-it deals that have proved pivotal for Microsoft's push into new areas such as virtualization."
Sounds like it might be an interesting article. Also looks odd - a slashdot article submission about Microsoft that's, at worse, neutral. Where's the pro-forma jab?
"And Microsoft's recent acquisition track record may lend credence to the heavy criticism levied against the company by former employees like Dick Brass."
Ah... there it is.
Bungie, Visio, Great Plains Software?
These three companies have made more money and been more influential than these companies!
"Hi, MicroSoft here and with all this bad press coming out lately, I would like to ensure you that we have some truly revolutionary products coming out soon... blah blah blah."
Wake me up when they actually produce something cool that I can touch and feel. I'm getting tired of the standard "MicroSoft is going to innovate, just wait and see" PR tagline.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
So how many of you have been in mid sized growing companies that eventually kill off any sort of innovation they had due to Turf Wars? Every mid
sized company I have ever worked for tend to start the death spiral just about before they hit the 300-400 million mark. Sure the brand carries
them for a while but all innovation starts dying due to politics and turf wars. Most will start heavy acquisitions at this point to stay ahead but that
only turns the acquired into mush. It is a interesting phenomena to watch from the sidelines as the business inevitably implodes.
Got Code?
Is it me, or has the press turned really critical of Microsoft in past couple of months? It sort of feels like the barbarians are at the gate, waiting to taste Balmer's bitter flesh. Yesterday it came to a crescendo with Joe Wilcox publishing a devastating piece on how middle manager culture is destroying innovation at the company.
I can't really peg this on one single thing, but if I were to guess, it's probably because Apple and Google are mapping out the future while Microsoft is still hung up chasing ghosts of yesteryear with me-too products with little or no tangible value.
Or perhaps it's just confirmation bias on my part because I don't particularly care for the company or majority of their products.
because you usually hear it from the executives and others who are well taken care of...
But having living through an acquisition by Microsoft of the small company I was working at, I personally found Microsoft's internal culture to be toxic to much of what made our startup successful in the first place. As I saw it, for the typical 'guy in the trenches' your competition soon stops being the other companies competing in your market and becomes your co-workers. The success of your origination is disconnected from the success of its products in the marketplace, while your personal success soon depends almost entirely upon your skills at competing against your peers, as it is predetermined how many winners and losers there will be amongst you.
Though not acquired in the past 5 years, Visio is still the best "Microsoft" product. It is the only one I wish I had, as the open source alternatives don't have the bells and whistles that make Visio a great product.
Visio is certainly usable and I might even grant you nicer than Dia. It is still not as nice as OmniGraffle which (while not OSS) blows Visio out of the water in many ways.
Apple did more than slap their name on it and sell it. Apple uses it's acquisitions as pieces to complete a puzzle.
"MultiTouch" was the missing piece to get the iPhone out the door.
They bought P.A. Semi in 2008, I bet the Apple ARM chip is more than something made in 2008 and stamped with a logo. But it's what was needed to get the iPad out.
iTunes has moved far beyond what it was originally.
It's true that Gates may not have been a real leader of Microsoft since the 1980s, but like Jobs he was the charismatic symbol of his company. The media ate up his "The Road Ahead" stuff just like they fawn over Jobs' keynotes. Ballmer, despite his sometimes amusing antics, is basically a generic CEO of no real consequence or media appeal.
Innovation in any large company is hard regardless of the market. I don't recall MS innovating much of anything...ever, but then I'm a Mac person.
Someone above wrote about what it was like to be in a small company taken over by MS. If the corporate culture is to promote a competition amongst the employees instead of competition geared toward competitors, then MS is probably what results. If you have a good idea, your co-workers will screw you because if it succeeds, they do not. That leaves the competition aspect of MS in the hands of Business School Product who understand nothing technical and but who really get "screwing a competitor" as a measure of success. Good ideas rise to the top at MS in spite of their current culture as opposed to because of their current culture.
Many other companies are in the same boat. HP used to be an innovator before they became PC/printer box makers. They screwed their engineering culture and now attempts to get it back are drowned by the Business School Product running the company. IBM appears somewhat similar although they do seem to have some hardware innovation kept alive, probably an oversight that will get killed off eventually.
It's a bit hard to tell where Apple's innovation comes from since the company is so secretive. Presumably, they have not neutered their engineering and some ideas are bubbling up from them.
The three companies are quite different.
Microsoft invests a ton of money in research and acquiring companies, but it never seems to have much impact on their products.
Apple invests nothing in research and a lot in acquiring companies, and they are excellent at getting their money's worth by putting the technology into products.
Google invests a decent amount of money in their own research (but they aren't as blue sky as Microsoft Research), they acquire quite a bit, and they usually end up putting a fair amount of both in-house and acquired technology into products.