Microsoft Bids $1.2B for FS&T Engine
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"Enterprise search is becoming an indispensable tool to businesses of all sizes, helping people find, use and share critical business information quickly"  Microsoft Corp. bid $1.2 billion for the Norwegian search engine company Fast Search &amp; Transfer ASA on Tuesday as it seeks to help companies trawl for information on the Internet.The offer of $2.97 per share, or 19 kroner, was 42 percent premium to the Norwegian company's recent average share price, and caused the stock to soar by nearly the same amount in early trading on the Oslo stock exchange. Fast's board unanimously recommended that shareholders accept the offer, a news release said. Read more
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US software giant Microsoft said on Tuesday it would offer to buy the Norwegian Internet search company Fast Search and Transfer for 1.2 billion dollars (836 million euros).
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Microsoft Friday unveiled a bid of 44.6 billion dollars for Yahoo in an effort to merge the world's biggest software company with a major Internet player to take on the Google juggernaut.
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Microsoft Corp. has offered to buy struggling internet search provider Yahoo for $44.6 billion, a merger that would combine two of the technology world's most well-known names into a potentially potent competitor for Google in the lucrative Web search and advertising market.
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International Business Machines Corp.  IBM.N has put its personal computing business up for sale in  a deal that could be worth as much as $2 billion, the New York  Times reported on Friday.
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Microsoft Corp has offered to buy  Norwegian Internet-search software firm Fast Search & Transfer  for 19 crowns per share, valuing the company at about $1.2  billion, the companies said on Tuesday.
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US software giant Microsoft has agreed to buy a stake in major television maker Sichuan Changhong Electric for 94.1 million yuan (12.3 million dollars), the Chinese firm said Monday.
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Rapidly rising Internet star Facebook Inc. has sold a 1.6 percent stake to Microsoft Corp. for $240 million, spurning a competing offer from online search leader Google Inc.
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Microsoft Corp.'s proposed $42 billion purchase of Yahoo Inc. would establish the world's largest software maker as a "strong No. 2 competitor" against online search leader Google Inc., Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Monday.
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Microsoft Friday unveiled a hostile bid of 44.6 billion dollars for Yahoo in an effort to merge the world's biggest software company with a major Internet player to take on the Google juggernaut.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has approached FacebookÂ in recent weeks proposing an investment that would give Microsoft a stake of up to 5 percent in the popular social-networking company, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. With Microsoft willing to invest between $300 million and $500 million, the deal would value Facebook at $10 billion or more, the Journal reported, quoting anonymous sources. Google has also expressed an interest in acquiring a Facebook stake recently, according to the Journal. Thus, Microsoft could find itself competing for Facebook's attention with Google. However, Facebook's discussions with Google and Microsoft are in the early stages and could end up with no agreement with either suitor, according to the Journal. IDG News Service's requests for comment from Facebook, Microsoft, and Google weren't immediately answered. Founded in February 2004, Facebook is one of the world's most popular social-networking sites with about 42 million active users. Facebook has been growing strongly in the past 12 months. In December, it had about 12 million active users. The site initially only admitted students, but last September it lifted that restriction. In May of this year, itÂ opened up to third-party developersÂ to create applications for the site, which has also added to its popularity with users. Along the way, it has caught the attention of big Internet playersÂ such asÂ Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. The latter reportedly tried to buy Facebook last year for $1 billion. Facebook's attractiveness is that it builds very strong and deep relationships with its users.Â More thanÂ half of its active members return to the site daily, and Facebook knows a lot about them, thanks to all the personal information people disclose on their site profiles and interactions with other members. This, in turn, offers a desirable audience to advertisers and to ad sellers and distributorsÂ such asÂ Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. A little more than a year ago,Â Facebook chose Microsoft to display banner adsÂ on the site. Facebook would be interested in using the cash raised from selling a stake for buying other companies, increasing its staff of about 300, and beefing up its technical infrastructure, the Journal reported. Facebook is also weighing the option of raising funds from financial investors, the Journal said.
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Like watching your dad dance at the prom The Wall Street Journal says Microsoft is looking to acquire a stake in famed Web 2.0 social networking operation Facebook. Referencing unnamed sources "familiar with the matter", the finance writers suggested Redmond might take five per cent of Facebook for "roughly $300m to $500m".â¦
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Microsoft today announced that it will buy Giant Company Software, a developer of anti-spyware and Internet security offerings. The Redmond, Washington, firm will use technology from the acquisition
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In an attempt to further spur development for its chosen next-generation DVD platform, Microsoft is making the tool available for $2,999.
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Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo for around $44.6 billion in cash and shares, to better compete with Google in the market for online services.
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Microsoft&#39;s $1.2 billion acquisition bid for Oslo-based Fast Search and Transfer and a dour report on Amazon marked the new year&#39;s first full trading week in the United States, as technology company share prices continued to slide.The increase in tech share prices that occurred in 2007 -- a banner year for IT company earnings -- appears to be in danger of evaporating, as fears of a general downturn and bad news on the consumer front resound among industry insiders. U.S. Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke&#39;s announcement on Thursday that he would move to cut interest rates to spur growth provided only a temporary halt to a decline in the Nasdaq Composite Index, which closed Friday at 2,440, down 212 points from its close at the end of 2007.This week, investment banking firm Goldman Sachs forecast that the United States will suffer a recession this year. Company analyst David Kostin reduced his recommendation for the amount of technology stocks that investors should keep in their portfolios, from 19 percent to 15 percent.Investors usually like to keep a good percentage of their holdings in tech stocks to hedge their bets. IT companies are truly global, with major U.S. vendors earning about 50 percent of their revenue outside their home countries.But inside the United States, tech companies are getting hit with a double whammy: a predicted weakening of consumer spending because of falling home prices and a resulting crisis in financial markets. Up to 18 percent of U.S. and global tech spending comes from financial companies, according to Forrester Research.Turmoil in the financial markets will likely dampen tech buyouts from private equity investors, according to the 451 Group&#39;s Tech Banking Outlook Survey, released this week. But that might not stop cash-rich technology companies from continuing to shop for deals, it noted.On Tuesday,&#160;Microsoft announced that it would buy enterprise search software company Fast Search And Transfer&#160;for 6.6 billion Norwegian kroner ($1.2 billion). Microsoft said it will integrate Fast Search&#39;s high-end search technologies into its enterprise infrastructure offerings, including SharePoint Server 2007 business productivity platform.Microsoft is locked in a search battle with Google, not just for general Web searches but also for businesses. Fast Search shares got an immediate boost on the Oslo exchange, where its price jumped from 13.35 kroner to close at 18.80 kroner Tuesday. The deal did not keep Microsoft shares from sliding in a generally down market for tech, however.On the consumer side, investors were particularly spooked by comments on Tuesday from AT&amp;T CEO Randall Stephenson, who said the company has had to stop servicing an increasing number of customers who did not pay their bills. The company closed Tuesday at $39.07, down by $1.96 for the day.The news did not bode well for other technology companies that sell to consumers. Citing uncertainty about U.S. consumer spending, American Technology Research Monday put a &quot;sell&quot; rating on Amazon, which then on Tuesday fell by $2.66 to close at $85.22 on the Nasdaq.Even companies that received positive reports from analysts this week were slammed by the general market slide. Lazard Capital Markets started its coverage of virtualization-software darling VMware, which had a successful IPO last month, by issuing a &quot;buy&quot; rating on Tuesday. VMware&#39;s share price jumped by $5.39 to close at $79.89 Wednesday, but slid back to $77.53 by the end of the week.
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Software dinosaur Microsoft paid millions for a tiny piece of trendy internet property Facebook. But the company needs something to make it hot again