New Delhi: Microsoft has always been keen in buying companies but has not done justice to them. This time it is the professional networking website LinkedIn, which has been acquired by the software giant.
The deal has been made in an all-cash valued at $26.2 billion (Rs 1.75 lakh crore approx.). This deal is expected to close this calendar year. The deal may give Microsoft’s cloud and social aims a push, but investors clearly weren’t pleased with the decision. While stocks of LinkedIn rallied following the announcement, Microsoft’s shares went south.
Here are the 5 buying mistakes done by the software giant:
Nokia: Nokia was a finished company the day it decided to keep its own smartphone platform, Symbian. The super popular company had already lost its entire market hold to Apple, Samsung and other Android device makers. This was the time Microsoft bought the sinking ship for a massive $7 billion (Rs 47,000 cr approx.) and the new team was unable to turn Nokia's ailing fortunes around.
Danger: Microsoft acquired Danger, the company responsible for the software and services powering many popular consumer handsets, back in 2008 at $500 million. The software major tried experimenting created Microsoft KIN, a product which was the outcome of Microsoft and Danger's collaboration. The device had critically bad reviews and was taken off after just 48 days.
Tellme Networks: Tellme Networks specialized in telephone-based applications and was bought by Microsoft for around $800 million (Rs 5,350 cr approx.) but it turned out to be a bad decision as the mobility based devices and search engines were at their rising state.
aQuantive: Microsoft in a bid to compete with Google, bought online ad agency aQuantive in a $6 billion (Rs 40,340 cr approx.) cash deal, paying top dollars to buy into the suddenly hot sector. But in July 2012, Microsoft wrote off the entire value of the $6.2 acquisition.
Navision: Microsoft acquired Navision, the Danish enterprise-software company in a $1.3 billion (Rs 8,700.25 crore approx.) stock-and-cash deal. The company was planned to be bundled with Great Plains Software into Microsoft Dynamics. But Microsoft failed in the CRM market against SAP, Salesforce and Oracle.
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