Microsoft's purchase of Tellme makes up the brunt of its 2007 acquisitions Microsoft Corp. doubled its spending on acquisitions in its recently completed fiscal year, to more than $1.3 billion, but a single deal accounted for a large portion of the increase.
And overall, Microsoft made fewer acquisitions -- 13, compared with 21 the prior year.
The company disclosed the figures in its annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission late last week. The numbers don't include Microsoft's acquisition of Seattle-based advertising company aQuantive Inc. That $6 billion agreement was announced last year, but the deal hasn't yet been completed.
However, the total for the year does include the purchase of Tellme Networks Inc., the voice technology company on which Microsoft reportedly spent at least $800 million.
Based on those reports and the newly released total, the Tellme acquisition alone appears to have accounted for more than half of Microsoft's spending on acquisitions in its 2007 fiscal year, which ended June 30.
But apart from aQuantive and Tellme, Microsoft continued to concentrate mostly on the smaller deals that have become its bread-and-butter in recent years, in part because they're more manageable and easier to fold into existing operations.
"From that standpoint, I think they've been pretty disciplined despite having this huge amount of cash," said Sid Parakh, an analyst at McAdams Wright Ragen in Seattle. Microsoft had $23.4 billion in cash and short-term investments as of June 30 -- considerably less than in the past, because of dividends and stock buybacks.Continue At Source
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