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.
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If you want tech conglomerates, look at Tencent. Their portfolio is absolutely absurd. Even SoftBank outside the vision fund is a tech conglomerate.