Don Dodge is apparently part of Microsoft’s emerging business team, recently of Groove. He is providing some amazing insight into the biz dev side of Microsoft. Definitely subscribed.

I also like this list of classic MS-style acquisitions – smallish companies with strong engineers, unique technology, market presence that compliments our existing portfolio:

  • QDOS became MS-DOS
  • ForeThought became Powerpoint
  • SoftDesign became Microsoft Project
  • Vermeer became FrontPage
  • PlaceWare became Live Meeting
  • Vicinity became a key part of MapPoint
  • nCompass Labs became Content Management Server
  • Bungie Studios became Halo
  • HotMail
  • Visio
  • Great Plains
  • Groove Networks

    • I’d like to add one:

    • Valence Research became Network Load Balancing (NLB)

    Just a personal favorite from back in the day.