Microsoft Acquisition History

• 1989
  • Santa Cruz Operation, UNIX, Server operating system - 20% stake

• 1990

• 1991

• 1992

• 1993

• 1994
  • DreamWorks Interactive, , Multimedia titles - $30 million (50% stake)
  • Dreamworks SKG, , Movies, music and entertainment - not disclosed
  • One Tree, SourceSafe, Source code management; used in Visual Basic and Visual Studio - not disclosed
  • Stac Electronics, producer of Stacker - $39.9M
  • UUNet, , Internet network infrastructure - 13% stake (bought by MFS in 1996)
  • June 28: SoftImage, High-level 3D animation - $177M
  • November 1: NextBase
  • November 15: One Tree Software

• 1995
  • Bruce Artwick Organization, Flight Simulator, Games software - not disclosed
  • Individual Inc., iNews, Customized business news services - 7.4% stake
  • MSNBC, MSNBC, On-line news - $500 million
  • Netwise, producer of Transaccess, Linking databases to mainframes
  • RenderMorphics Ltd., Reality Lab, 3D graphics for games - not disclosed
  • February 23: RenderMorphics, producer of RealityLab, become the bases of Direct3D
  • July 10: SNMP Technology From Network Managers
  • October 16: The Blue Ribbon SoundWorks, Ltd.
  • November 6: Interoperability Technology, Expertise From Netwise Inc.
  • December 12: Bruce Artwick Organization Ltd.

• 1996
  • Aha software, producer of Smart Ink and InkWriter ( Handwriting recognition )
  • Aspect Engineering, dbWeb, Internet Tools for the Web - not disclosed
  • Atomic Games, World at War, etc., Games software - publishing titles
  • Black Entertainment Television, MSBET, On-line news & entertainment - not disclosed (joint ownership with BET)
  • Colusa, OmniVM, Java-like object-oriented software - not disclosed
  • Electric Gravity, Internet Gaming Zone, On-line gaming environment - not disclosed
  • eShop, , Secure Internet retailing & payment system for Merchant Server. - not disclosed
  • Exos, Force Feedback, Joystick and input devices - not disclosed
  • NetCarta, Web Mapper (now Site Analyst), Web site management - $20 million
  • Panorama Software Systems, , Multidimensional database
  • ResNova Software, WebforOne and Boulevard, Mac Web server Software company - not disclosed
  • SingleTrac Entertainmnet, Twisted Metal, Game software - not disclosed
  • VDONet Corp., VDO Wave technology, Video steaming - 5% stake
  • Vermeer, Vermeer (renamed Frontpage), Web site editor & management - $80 to $130 million
  • Rainbow America, Fury 3, Games software - publishing titles
  • December: Proginet Corp, TransAccess, Proginet Oasis, Linking Web applications to mainframes - not disclosed (10% stake)
  • January 16: Vermeer Technologies Inc.
  • March 12: Colusa and Aspect
  • April 8: aha! software
  • April 15: EXOS Inc.
  • June 11: eShop Inc.
  • June 17: Electric Gravity Inc.
  • October 29: Panorama Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)
  • November 20: Leading Macintosh Web Server Technology
  • December 10: NetCarta

• 1997
  • Apple Computer, MacOS, Computer company - $150 million (stake)
  • Comcast Corp, , Cable company, QVC - $1 billion (10% stake)
  • Coopers & Peters, EyeOpener, Java and Smalltalk tools, add to MS AFC - not disclosed
  • Dimension X, Liquid Motion, Interactive software, key java tools - not disclosed
  • Interse Corp., Market Focus (now Usage Analyst), Web site analysis (incorporated in MS Site Server) - not disclosed
  • `LinkAge Software Inc., NotesConnector and email software, Support Microsoft Exchange on e-mail in enterprise computing - not disclosed
  • Navitel, , Internet telephone software to integrate into Windows CE & WebTV - not disclosed (minority stake)
  • Progressive Networks Inc, RealAudio, Audio/Video streaming - 10% stake
  • Trados, producer of Translators Workbench, Multilingual document production facilities for software developers. - 20% stake
  • Vxtreme, , Video streaming - $75 million
  • Web TV Networks, , Internet access device - $425 million
  • Wildfire Communications, producer of Wildfire, Voice recognition integrated into Microsoft's Outlook e-mail - Equity investment (undisclosed amount)

• 1998

• 1999

• 2000
  • June 19: Bungie, fine maker of games, such as Marathon and Halo.

• 2001
  • April: GreatPlains, maker of e-business solutions software

• 2002
  • July: Navision, maker of EnterpriseResourcePlanning software

• 2003
  • Connectix, software for machine virtualization
  • PlaceWare, maker of realtime collaboration software (similar to WebEx)

• 2004

Is it really reasonable to put much effort in creating such a list here? Just look at the following sources: Microsoft acquired a lot of companies. The list gets even longer if those are considered too, in which Microsoft only invested.

You have a very good point. I didn't find a list on the Microsoft site, only partial ones on divers sites. At least, I have get what I want. Thanks you.

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/msft/invest.htm''
Source: http://www.netaction.org/msoft/world/table.html''
Source: http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~kkoster/microsoft/financial.html'' ( BrokenLink )
Source: http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog/catalog.shtml'' ( BrokenLink )