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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."
Most of the companies on that list were intelligent purchasing decisions by Microsoft, even if all of them didn't pan out in the end. Most of them even have examples included of where their input has specifically improved Microsoft's products. I think that Dick Brass's article in the Times was fairly harsh, but if what he says is true and Microsoft no longer has the capability for innovation, then buying innovators with their still-impressive supply of cash and then successfully integrating their work into their products is a good substitute for coming up with those ideas themselves. It's certainly not ideal, but it can work as long as they still have the funds to do so.
> Microsoft has become a clumsy, uncompetitive innovator.
Microsoft has always been a clumsy, uncompetitive innovator (though I suppose dumpster-diving does require a certain amount of agility).
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Ah, Danger, the company that all the competent people abandoned, and ended messing up the storage/backup for all of T-Mobile Sidekick users' data?
How did that go anyway, I heard they managed to find a way to recover most of it?
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
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.
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.