Don Hite at myITforum.com

Microsoft Acquisitions

The list of Microsoft company purchases keeps growing but this year seems to be a boon year for Microsoft acquisitions. Winternals and Sysinternals are not the only ones purchased by Microsoft this year but for some reason these acquisitions seem to be hitting a nerve among Windows Server, SMS Server and the MOM Server user communities. 

This year alone Microsoft has acquired not only Winternals and Sysinternals but Softricity, Whale Communications, Massive Inc., Lionhead Studios, ProClarity Corp, Apptimum Inc., Onfolio Inc. and Motion Bridge as listed on their official Investor relations page below:

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/acquisitions/history.mspx#EV

Microsoft again announced last week that it is purchasing Azyxxi software which is a healthcare data aggregation software package built on SQL Server and .Net technologies. But what do all these Microsoft purchases and acquisitions mean to us the “Microsoft user’s community”?

This is not a new practice for major software companies in fact it is an old practice. I can remember how angry I was when my favorite MS-DOS utilities suite "Norton Utilities" was taken over by Symantec when they “Merged” with Peter Norton Computing in 1990. The same thing happened again when my  favorite MS-DOS file manager Xtree was purchased by Central Point software the makers of PC Tools in 1993 which by the way was then acquired by Symantec as well within months of the Xtree “Merger”.

I was upset because I thought it was a way for Symantec and Central Point to effectively eliminate their rival competition. Furthermore I was afraid that Central Point or Symantec would release their versions of the software that they acquired and change them so much that they would barely be recognizable as my old favorites and I would no longer care to use them.

This practice or strategy seems to be especially true for Microsoft who has consistently bought or acquired companies for the last 20 years. I have heard both the negative and the positive arguments for and against Microsoft acquiring small to medium sized companies and most of them ring true from both sides of the coin.

What do you think about mergers and acquisitions as a whole or acquisitions by Microsoft in particular? Are acquisitions and mergers a good thing or a bad thing?

Is it just a way for larger companies to eliminate their competition or is it a means in which companies can legitimately obtain the intellectual properties of companies for their own purposes?

Additional Resources:

Wikipedia List of companies acquired by Microsoft Corporation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_acquired_by_Microsoft_Corporation