What is 'acquisition strategy' revealed by Microsoft?

by efes

Microsoft has acquired a number of startups so far, but Amy Hood, Chief Financial Officer, revealed that in recent years he has been focusing on the acquisition of the "community" in particular. Mr. Hood talks about the importance of the asset "network".

Microsoft CFO Amy Hood on M & A: communities, networked assets
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/microsoft-cfo-amy-hood-m-and-a-communities-networked-assets.html

Under Mr. Hood, Microsoft acquired the developer of Minecraft at 268 billion yen in 2014, acquired 2.8 trillion yen for LinkedIn in 2016, and acquired GitHub over 800 billion yen in June 2018 did. Mr. Hood continues to acquire the community in the past five years, Mr. Hood said at the conference called Most Powerful Women Summit 2018 "We have network assets, growing markets, and we are a better owner I'm looking for a place to get through. " LinkedIn is "professional", Minecraft to "player", GitHub to "developer", and Microsoft has intentionally bought such a network.

After the acquisition of Microsoft, LinkedIn members increased from 543 million to 557 million. Likewise, GitHub has 28 million developers and Minecraft has 91 million monthly players.

Since Mr. Hood succeeded Mr. Peter Crane in 2013, Microsoft has actually acquired over 57 acquisitions. Mr. Satya Nadera became the CEO of Microsoft in 2014 after Mr. Hood was inaugurated. Microsoft led by CEO Nadera has acquired a wide range of companies such as "Acompli" of e-mail application, "Avere Systems" which provides storage, "Flipgrid" of educational startup, but at the conference I regretted not having bought Mr. Hood, who was asked, "I have not thought about it," and commented, "That is not very productive thinking." We have always said that he is thinking about the next step, thinking about a new acquisition.