Microsoft, the company that got accustomed to spreading their wallets wide open. Open to acquisitions that will help their company revolve with the changes in technology.

In past dealings, Microsoft had focused much on small deals in acquiring technology rather than taking in big deals in establishing their business.

Microsoft had made larger deals as over the passed years. These are deals accumulating from 400 million dollars to 1.3 billion dollars. One of the purchases would be WebTV and Hotmail back in the 1990’s. WebTV focused more on internet protocol television. Though Web-based email is not a huge money maker in the internet scene, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are daring to change that.

Company             Year                 Estimated Cost

Fast                     2008                    $1.2 billion

Aquintive            2007                       $6 billion

Tell Me               2007                    $800 million

Navision             2002                   $1.33 billion

Great Plains        2001                   $1.1 billion

Visio                   1999                     $1.3 billion        

Hotmail               1998                     $400 million

WebTV               1997                     $425 million

Microsoft purchases like the “Great Plains Software” in 2001 and “Navision” that followed in 2002, and these were used to get into the space of business application.

Microsoft had yet to break even with costs of buying companies like “Aquantive” which is a 6 billion purchase. Aquintive is expected to play a major role on online advertisements space. “Tellme” however is another purchase where in it deals with Office Unit to Mobile search.

This acquisition is taking Microsoft into new businesses. Making things better so it seems for Microsoft as it expands its horizons.