Microsoft's Top-10 Acquisitions

Since 2000, Microsoft's acquisitions have become increasingly large in scale. E.g., the 2022 acquisition of Activision Blizzard came at more than twice the cost of LinkedIn. The deal was able to bypass antitrust probes from both FTC and CMA, largely thanks to president Brad Smith's strong ties with government bodies and the company's goodwill of transferring cloud gaming rights outside the EU to Ubisoft.

Looking back at past major acquisitions, there have been notable missteps. For example, the $6.2 billion goodwill impairment on advertising company aQuantive nearly wiped out the entire investment. Nokia's fall from dominance in the mobile phone market, eventually being acquired by HMD and FIH Mobile, is another well-known tale. The decision to takeover GitHub also received mixed reputations from the open source community.

Nonetheless, Microsoft has remained a dominant force in the tech industry. The complex relationship with OpenAI has reinvigorated the company, drawing fresh public attention. Meanwhile, its early investment in AI-driven healthcare corporation Nuance Communications is starting to show its effects. To better understand Microsoft's trajectory, I tidy up its top 10 acquisitions leading up to 2024. Let's dive in.