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Microsoft Trolling for New Acquisitions

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Mon Feb 11, 2008 02:29 PM
from the playing-catch-up dept.
Businesses Microsoft
NewShinyCD writes "Sources tell Valleywag that startup Ustream.tv is in advanced discussions with Microsoft to acquire the lifecasting service for more than $50 million, but there are other companies in the bidding as well. Ustream is currently raising a very large initial round of VC financing, and Microsoft is attempting to grab them prefunding for a cheap price. Our tipster also mentions that Microsoft would use Ustream as a way to promote its Adobe Flash competitor, Silverlight." Relatedly, Microsoft has also announced their intent to buy Sidekick maker Danger. Financial details of the Danger buyout were not disclosed.
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Submission: Microsoft To Acquire Ustream.tv For $50 Million? by NewShinyCD (1236984)
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Microsoft Trolling for New Acquisitions 50 Comments More /

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  • Wow, that's quite a title. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by verbalcontract (909922) on Monday February 11 2008, @02:35PM (#22382294)

    I wonder how the person who wrote that title feels about Microsoft?

    Next up: "Microsoft cruising seedy bars on the hunt for fresh start-up action."

    • Re:Wow, that's quite a title. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by abaddononion (1004472) on Monday February 11 2008, @02:41PM (#22382350)
      Maybe that's a fair point (I'm not saying the title created was unbiased, at all), but I think that this is put into a different perspective in the wake of Microsoft attempting to buy Yahoo, as well.

      There's a chance that this sudden surge of purchasing, if it's anything out of the ordinary (maybe it isn't, I don't personally keep close enough tabs on Microsoft acquisitions), is a sign of some sort of desperation on Microsoft's end. Rather than attempting to come up with any further new ideas (something I'm not certain Microsoft has really been interested in for a while now), they just seem to want to buy enough bits and pieces of the industry to increase their foothold.

      But then, Im just speculating. Appearances may be deceiving, but this appears to be an indicator that something's up over at M$. I just wonder the impact it will have if they were to go through with all of these acquisitions--including Yahoo--and none of it did them any good. Seems like that'd put a big dent even into Microsoft's daunting coffers.

      • Re:Wow, that's quite a title. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AndGodSed (968378) on Monday February 11 2008, @02:53PM (#22382500) Homepage

        Rather than attempting to come up with any further new ideas (something I'm not certain Microsoft has really been interested in for a while now), they just seem to want to buy enough bits and pieces of the industry to increase their foothold.


        Or threatening to sue for "patent infringement" like they did with several linux distros, Mark Shuttleworth gave them the finger...

      • Re:Wow, that's quite a title. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by TheRaven64 (641858) on Monday February 11 2008, @03:02PM (#22382608) Homepage Journal
        Microsoft haven't been about creating new ideas for a long while now, if they ever were. The interesting change is that, now, rather than buying the best company in a market they want to enter, they are failing to buy the second-best. The thing this really indicates is that the management at Microsoft is no longer able to predict (or control) technology trends accurately enough to buy companies before they can gain a major foothold on the market. I wonder what Larry and Sergei would have said to an offer of a few million from Microsoft in 1999.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by truthsearch (249536)
        Microsoft is continually looking for companies to purchase. They've acquired more than 80 companies since 1994 [microsoft.com]. So they've obviously discussed acquisitions with many times that number of companies. This looks like business as usual.
        • Indeed. Add to that the fact that a lot of the old-guard upper level Microsofties are retiring, and it makes sense that their strategies are changing a little with the moves into new markets via purchasing companies - new people in charge, new plans for growth.
          • You may be wrongly assuming the acquisitions will improve microsoft's bottom line. It is a widely observed M&A fact that most acquisitions result in no net gain to the acquiring party.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jalm111 (1237454)

        Microsoft not coming up with new ideas? They only spend about $7 billion a year on research which last time I checked was more than Google, IBM, or anyeone else for that matter. I believe this counts as 'attempting to come up with new ideas'.

        They've been buying a crap load of companies every year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_acquired_by_Microsoft_Corporation), this is nothing new...

        • Yeah, but spending the money and coming up with nothing or little to nothing (excluding Surface, which was really a college experiment if I remember right) surely makes you wonder if that R&D money is being well spent, spent at all, or being channeled to another department for acquisitions in the guise of research.

            • A lot of the technologies you see on the market today were born at MSR.

              Ok I'll bite, name a few?

      • Re:Wow, that's quite a title. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by recoiledsnake (879048) on Monday February 11 2008, @03:45PM (#22383146)

        don't personally keep close enough tabs on Microsoft acquisitions), is a sign of some sort of desperation on Microsoft's end. Rather than attempting to come up with any further new ideas (something I'm not certain Microsoft has really been interested in for a while now), they just seem to want to buy enough bits and pieces of the industry to increase their foothold.
        Does that mean Google is more desperate and has no new ideas? Google acquired 17 companies in 2007(including the behemoth DoubleClick) whereas MS acquired only 14. Well I shouldn't have replied to someone calling Microsoft M$.

        • Re:Wow, that's quite a title. (Score:5, Informative)

          by trolltalk.com (1108067) on Monday February 11 2008, @03:14PM (#22382764) Homepage Journal

          Also, IIRC, they had something like $60billion in cash on hand last time I paid attention;

          You haven't been paying attention in quite a while - they have less than $22B. in cash, and even with offering only half-chas and half-stock,they've said they would probably borrow to finance the deal.

    • Re:Wow, that's quite a title. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pantero Blanco (792776) on Monday February 11 2008, @02:50PM (#22382466)

      I wonder how the person who wrote that title feels about Microsoft?

      Next up: "Microsoft cruising seedy bars on the hunt for fresh start-up action."

      The word "trolling" means fishing by pulling lures through the water, which isn't a bad analogy. It didn't come into existence after the birth of Usenet.

      "Microsoft Fishing for New Acquisitions" doesn't sound so bad, does it?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by smitth1276 (832902)
        So "trolling" is now to be considered a complete and perfect synonym for "negotiating an acquisition"?

        Grow up people. It isn't 1997 anymore. It's not cute anymore. It doesn't make you sound smart anymore. Give up the irrational MS hatred.
        • Not exactly, but it does work for MS's current tactic of throwing billions around and seeing who bites. In that sense, it's exactly like the fisherman's definition of trolling. Or, to be a bit more fair to Microsoft, the "trawling" spelling variant could be used.

      • Re:Wow, that's quite a title. (Score:5, Funny)

        by Chabil Ha' (875116) on Monday February 11 2008, @04:14PM (#22383498)

        "Microsoft Phishing for New Acquisitions" doesn't sound so bad, does it?
        There, that sounds more interesting.

    • Next up: "Microsoft cruising seedy bars on the hunt for fresh start-up action."
      "Microsoft trolling kindergarten for new acquisitions."

      Even in the most benign context that could possibly exist, the implications are unthinkable.

      If Microsoft isn't safe for your kids, who are they safe for? (microsoft = evil)

  • You can't blame them... (Score:3, Funny)

    by TripMaster Monkey (862126) on Monday February 11 2008, @02:38PM (#22382318)
    Predators have to eat too...

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by smitty97 (995791)
      and now that the yahoo thing isn't happening, they've got some money burning a hole in their pocket. apparently they can afford nearly 1000 of these little $50M companies.

  • Speaking of Silverlight... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TripMaster Monkey (862126) on Monday February 11 2008, @02:41PM (#22382358)

    Our tipster also mentions that Microsoft would use Ustream as a way to promote its Adobe Flash competitor, Silverlight."

    Joy. Another way for M$ to try to jam Silverlight down our throats...as if asking if we'd like to try it out every time we visit microsoft.com isn't quite invasive and annoying enough.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by sjaguar (763407)
      As a .NET developer, I would go to one of Microsoft's sites every day. Since their deployment of Silverlight (and my refusal to install), I will only go once every few months or so.
    • Yeah how are they going to keep making money off of OS Upgrades if they can't break the Internet for everyone who hasn't paid their OS upgrade tax recently?

      • Just curious: (Score:5, Funny)

        by Mongoose Disciple (722373) on Monday February 11 2008, @03:00PM (#22382594)
        Have you ever tried working on Flash as a developer? I'd pretty much rather slam my balls in a car door than do so again.

        Anything that makes Flash actually have to compete in the marketplace is a good thing.
        • That might have been true for ActionScript 1 and 2, AS3 is a solid OOP language. Also, as Flash gained popularity and was used for larger projects, it no longer became the realm of the designer. Most if not all sites I've worked on in the past 6 months have been using MVC and other design patterns.

          Most of the books on Flash development don't even use FLA's. Everything is taught using code only, so the quality of code and programmers has gone up significantly.

        • Have you ever tried working on Flash as a developer? I'd pretty much rather slam my balls in a car door than do so again.


          I haven't use Flash myself (a programmer) but my impression is that Flash is aimed at designers, not programmers. Maybe it works better for the target audience.

          -matthew

      • Amen AC, my thoughts exactly. Why do I have to install flash to use the internet...didn't want it either but many sights are 100% flash and offer no alternative (such as my bank's site), now I have one more thing to install if silverlight becomes popular...please oh please let them both die...

  • More propaganda! (Score:4, Funny)

    by jav1231 (539129) on Monday February 11 2008, @02:45PM (#22382410)
    Okay, I'm sick of this anti-Microsoft propaganda! It's not called an "acquisition!" It's called innovation! And thank goodness Microsoft is willing to innovate! Where would we be without Microsoft's lawyers out there pushing innovation? I'll tell you where we'd be! We'd have to depend on independent-thinking coders, developers, and open-source maverick's for our software and hardware advances! Or (shudder the thought) small companies with "great ideas." Puhleez! Let's stick to reality here, Folks!

  • Intuit probably owns at least 80% of the SMB financial software market. By some counts, Intuit owns 92% of that market.

    I think msft may be in somewhat of a price war with intuit right now, but it is not helping msft. I think msft's quickbooks competitor is selling for around $150, but it looks like intuit has dropped the price of quickbooks to about $130. I think quickbooks used to cost around $500.

    I see no way for msft to steal the market from intuit. Intuit is too well established, there is a huge networ
    • They already tried, a few years back.

      As I recall, the DOJ (FTC?) wouldn't let them. It was around the time MSFT first came out with Microsoft Money.
    • I think you underestimate just how rich Microsoft is. They just got done trying to buy Yahoo for nearly 48bn, they have lots of cash to throw around due to their desktop monopoly that others do not. If anyone could do it, it's MS by financial brute force alone.
    • If MS were to buy Intuit, I'm not sure where I would go for my personal financial software. I used MS Money for a couple of years. When I found that they add bugs that cause wrong totals to show, I spent about an hour and a half jumping through hoops to report the problem, and walk the support rep through recreating the problem on their end. 3 months later, a had a message on my answering machine that said, they were going to close the ticket without correcting it because I wasn't home when they called.
    • they were rebuffed for anticompetitive practices. they were ready to trash microsoft money and take over quicken

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicken#History [wikipedia.org]

  • Copycat (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Prien715 (251944) <agnosticpope@@@comcast...net> on Monday February 11 2008, @02:53PM (#22382502) Homepage Journal
    Part of MS's strategy is to let other companies find markets, and then compete in them once those markets exist.

    XBox. Zune. Live Search (let's buy Yahoo!)

    The iPhone was wildly successful so let's copy it, since that seems to be working for us so well with the iPod.

    The best part of this "strategy" is that every division except the office/Windows division, loses money. Which leads me to wonder why they even try.

    • The best part of this "strategy" is that every division except the office/Windows division, loses money. Which leads me to wonder why they even try.
      the mouse got the cookies it asked for and now it wants milk as well.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by ArikTheRed (865776)

      The best part of this "strategy" is that every division except the office/Windows division, loses money. Which leads me to wonder why they even try.

      That's not entirely accurate. MS XBox division profited $524M so far the first half of this financial year, and growing (they did lose money in the beginning - no surprise to anyone).

      It only takes one success to make up for many failures - that's how VC companies make their money. That's a large part of what MS is: a giant technology VC company. But rather than just invest in other companies, they buy them.

      • The problem is that since Gates left, Microsoft has reorganized a bunch of times by corporate executives that do what executives do, make themselves look good. The new divisional lines seem designed to make certain that every division is profitable, by taking a money maker and assigning it a bunch of losers.

        The corporate structure appears designed to protect executives, their jobs, and their bonuses, not identify winners to ride and losers to cut loose. The company is WAY less cutthroat and vicious that i
  • ... Slashdot is a self-parody at this point.
  • "Microsoft Trolling"

    the meaning of which can go both ways, and still summarizes the meaning of the story better

  • MS has also eaten Caligari (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Fallen Andy (795676) on Monday February 11 2008, @03:21PM (#22382872)
    Click on the picture at top right and scroll through the

    short thread at http://www.caligari.com/ [caligari.com].

    Does this mean we'll see a 3d desktop on Blue Crystals(R) 7.5 I wonder?

    or even worse a 3d virtual MS-Bob

    Andy

    • I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen this news on Slashdot or other tech orientated sites. This is a direct attempt to go toe to toe with Google Earth and Sketchup, and I assume 3D web content as well.
  • I can see that, release a crappy new version of windows, nobody buys it, look for a new revenue stream by buying up a few good idea companies...though these choices they made just look like another sad attempt by monkeyboy to take over googles place in the market.
  • Say goodbye to the Sidekick (aka Danger HipTop). Microsoft is simply the kiss of death for any company or product. Like chatting with your friends on AIM? Forget it! You can force them to sign up for an MSN account now. Like using sites like Google to look up info on your Sidekick? Forget it! You'll use Windows Live and like it! Like using your Sidekick and think it's pretty stable? Not any more.... here comes Windows Mobile.... to fuck up the day! Microsoft thinks that they are going to get a big youth ma
    • As a Sidekick owner I am totally bummed out about this. The one area where the Sidekick is better than any other smart phone out there is it is DEBUGGED! I have never lost data, never had to reboot, never gone out of my mind dealing with bugs or slowness like I have with most other cellphones I have tried. The thing would sometimes not render wide-screen websites properly but it would never flat out crash. That was kind of the bargain with the sidekick, all you can eat data and easy to use well tested f
  • "Trolling" would mean they're hanging around crappy discussion forums looking for ways to cheeze people off.

    "Trawling" would mean they're out there dragging their nets and fishing lines in hopes of catching something worth keeping.

    The former is intentionally pejorative, the latter is simply metaphorical.

  • First, it's obvious that "trolling" in the context of an online FORUM is going to have definite negative connotations. It doesn't really matter what the original term meant, it matters what it means to those you are talking to.

    Secondly, since when has buying companies been new, or been evil? Google has bought a ton of stuff, and while some are honest in their thinking about it, most seem to have a "Microsoft Bad, Other Companies Good" mentality that shades their opinion about, for example, "new acquisiti

    • The reason caution should be given to Microsoft regarding anything they do, is because what they did (in the public eye and behind closed doors) with the existing market computer market in the late 80's... take a crappy product (MS-DOS and Windows 3.0) litigate companies out of existence (like Stac Electronics,) run companies/products off/reduce the market through either bullying or blackmail (Atari, Amiga/Commodore 64/128, Wordperfect for Linux, Novell DOS7, Caldera DOS, CP/M) or through their illegal monopoly (Wordperfect in general, Visa-calc, WordPro, dBase III,) or through investment manipulation (the indirect funding of SCO Unix to litigate against Linux/IBM,) or even recently, the vote-buying and rigging of the ISO to pass a stupid standard like OOXML off as an ISO standard.

      No, Bill Gates is not the Devil, but he might be listening to him. And a lot of what MS-Executives do, not necessarily the employees, is Evil. Evil against a true democratic-judicial system that is somewhat prone to influence, bribery, and special interests when enough money is presented with a certain level of political maneuvering. True justice is when a person without large sums of money, a person like the consumer, can be protected from a person with a lot of wealth, power, and influence. (BTW: When someone can successfully use power, wealth, and influence to compromise a market and law enforcement the way microsoft has done over the years, that is not True Capitalism. That is Greed, Suppression of the People, and Taking Unfair Advantage of the consumer market. There is a reason they call it ANTI-TRUST, because the market DOES NOT TRUST them. You can defile the true beneficial impact of ANTI-TRUST by paying off the guardians of Trust.)

      And no, how Microsoft runs their business is not how it is suppose to be, because there were certain laws established to protect consumer markets, and all Microsoft see them as are marketing hurdles, not items that give respect to the people. By their actions, they reduce the options available to the market, because they know themselves, that anyone can out-produce, out-innovate, or out-create them. They had to change the rules to suit their corporate personality, which is equal to that of a high-school bully.

      Defending Microsoft? You claim you are not. But I refused to buy into the lie that Microsoft is a good corporate citizen of it's market and country. I want corporate responsibility, accountability, and true innovation by even the smallest least insignificant inventor, to give them a chance to get themselves out of poverty or a lower economic class just like people in pro-sports do. All of the citizens are valuable, not just a select few rich and wealthy people who also happen to be bent on Greed instead of being a public or market servant.

  • Diworsification (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TruthfulLiar (927336) on Monday February 11 2008, @03:44PM (#22383130) Homepage
    Some investment book I was reading (Peter Lynch, maybe) referred to companies investing in areas outside their traditional areas as diworsification because when companies did it, it usually hurt the business. And in either Built to Last or Good to Great, Jim Collins says that great businesses stick to their main thing they do well (their "hedgehog concept"). I wonder if Microsoft has lost its vision. Seems like they would do better if they focussed on making a great OS (their main strength) for mobile phones rather than making phones (not their strength).

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