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Microsoft is not a technology company at its core. You have to look at it as a conglomerate similar to Berkshire Hathaway except MSFT focuses on investing in te
by bitxbit 6y ago
Microsoft is not a technology company at its core. You have to look at it as a conglomerate similar to Berkshire Hathaway except MSFT focuses on investing in technology companies. The reason why this works is because their cap cost is one of the lowest and they are able to use its shares to more or less retain talent at a steep discount as a result.
- skinnymuch 6y agoTencent fits that mold. Microsoft big purchases outside media ones that have mostly if not completely been divested are aQuantive, Skype, Yammer, Nokia, Mojang, GitHub. - Many of their big 90s acquisitions like Hotmail and Vision were part of their core products. - Nokia, Danger were for their phone business. - aQuantive was a response to Yahoo, Google buying up advertising properties - Yammer was for their central enterprise moves - Mojang along with a number of other gaming purchases like Rare Obsidian, and backend companies are for their strong gaming division. - GitHub fits in with their Azure and developer focus. - Skype could’ve fit in better and did try and was for their cohesive enterprise and all in one attempts. It fits too. - LinkedIn is the only one you can really say was a big purchase without the same level of synergy or drop in support to the company. Microsoft is as far from a conglomerate as you can get. - If you want tech conglomerates, look at Tencent. Their portfolio is absolutely absurd. Even SoftBank outside the vision fund is a tech conglomerate.