Infographic: Every Microsoft Acquisition Since 1986
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Key Takeaways
- Microsoft has acquired at least 277 companies since 1986, including businesses in hardware, software, communications, and gaming
- Many of these acquisitions have played a key role in Microsoft’s growth, including Hotmail in 1997 (email platform), Mojang in 2014 (developer of Minecraft), and GitHub in 2018 (world’s largest code hosting platform)
Microsoft has long been known for its aggressive acquisition strategy. Since the mid-1980s, the company has acquired hundreds of businesses to expand its reach across operating systems, enterprise software, gaming, AI, and more.
In this infographic, we break down a timeline of Microsoft acquisitions from 1986 to 2024, showing the evolution of its business interests over nearly four decades.
Data & Discussion
The data for this visualization comes from various online sources, with the bulk of the list coming from Wikipedia. We also referenced the official Microsoft blog to verify details and dates.
Of the 277 acquisitions listed in this dataset, 192 companies were based in the U.S. A further 20 were from Canada, 14 from Israel, and 13 from the UK. The remaining 37 were largely based in Europe and Asia.
Acquisition Growth Accelerates Post-2000
Microsoft’s M&A activity ramped up significantly in the 2000s, averaging 10 acquisitions per year between 2000 and 2009.
This period saw the company expand into enterprise software and services, acquiring names like Visio and Great Plains Software.
Microsoft’s acquisition of Visio was an all-stock deal worth $1.5 billion, which integrated diagramming software into Microsoft Office. Great Plains Software was purchased in a similar fashion, and would later become Microsoft Dynamics, offering business software for accounting, supply chain management, and more.
This era also marked Microsoft’s push into gaming, highlighted by its purchases of Ensemble Studios (the developer of Age of Empires) and Bungie (the creator of the Halo franchise).
Microsoft has continued to make major acquisitions in the gaming sector, including Mojang (the creator of Minecraft) and Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, etc.)
Microsoft’s Mobile Blunders
Unfortunately, not all of Microsoft’s acquisitions panned out the way they were intended. One of its most high-profile blunders was in the mobile sector.
In 2014, the company acquired Nokia’s Devices and Services division for $7.2 billion to build a hardware ecosystem for Windows Phone. Despite the scale of the deal, the strategy faltered—Microsoft wrote down nearly the entire acquisition just a year later, and Windows Phone was eventually abandoned.
Earlier, in 2008, Microsoft had acquired Danger Inc., the company behind the T-Mobile Sidekick, with hopes of bringing its expertise to new mobile products. That effort culminated in the Microsoft Kin, which flopped so badly they were discontinued just 48 days after launch.
Global and AI-Focused in Recent Years
Microsoft is increasingly focused on artificial intelligence and cloud computing, with deals like Nuance Communications (2021) in healthcare AI, and Inflection AI (2024) to boost its large language model (LLM) capabilities.
The deal with Inflection AI has been described as a pseudo-acquisition, where Microsoft hired key personnel to lead the development of Copilot.
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