MicrosoftAcquisitionHistory

Last edit July 23, 2014
  • 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
  • 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 )