Strategy Intent Said That the Goal for Smart Competitor Is Competitive Innovation

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Strategic acquisitions will expand Microsoft’s presence in other operating systems. In line with its “mobile first cloud first” strategy, Microsoft purchased Minecraft and invested in Cyanogen, a software company that makes a free alternate version of the Android operating system. With the recent acquisition of Sunrise and Acompli, it seems clear that Microsoft is interested in producing apps for outside platforms. The company is also spending cash to strategically acquire companies with domain expertise in this space, in order to enhance its customer base and presence. Microsoft acquired Sunrise. In February 2015, Microsoft (MSFT) continued its acquisition spree with the latest acquisition of Sunrise. Since December 2014, Microsoft has been very aggressive with its acquisition strategy. It acquired Accompli, Hockeyapp, Aorato, Equivio, and now Sunrise. Sunrise is a startup that produces cloud-based calendar apps for Apple’s (AAPL) iOS and Google’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Android. Unconfirmed rumors state the transaction to be worth $100 million. Microsoft enhanced its outlook through acquisition of Acompli .On December 1, 2014, Microsoft (MSFT) announced the acquisition of Acompli, an email startup company, for approximately $200 million. Acompli provides Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) Android and Apple (AAPL) iOS email apps that support a variety of email platforms like Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, and Outlook, and cloud productivity platforms like Office 365, iCloud, and Google Apps. Acompli is a mobile-focused email management system whose features include shortcuts to help people schedule appointments and accomplish other tasks. The Acompli app lets users sort through emails by contact, and through an automatically generated folder of files that is attached to emails. Within the app, Acompli shows three bars of results, according to contacts, keywords and phrases, and messages. Thus, the app lets users do many things within an inbox without switching to another app.

The above presentation shows the results of a community poll held by Owler that shows the appeal of Acompli. If Microsoft’s stock attracts you, you can consider investing in the Powershares QQQ Trust (QQQ) or the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK), which have exposure to Microsoft of 8% and 9.61%, respectively.

Strategic acquisitions enhance company’s mobile presence

Both Acompli and Sunrise have an established base of users, through which Microsoft aims to enhance its mobile strategy and enhance its desktop and Outlook user base. Microsoft has integrated Acompli’s apps with Outlook. Plus, through the Sunrise acquisition, Microsoft hopes to further attract Outlook and enterprise users. Because Sunrise is a cross-platform and cross-device app, it has gained popularity.

Acquisitions enhance user base in smartphones space

As we have seen in the earlier part of the series, Microsoft (MSFT) has acquired Sunrise and Acompli in order to bolster its MS Outlook, which spans mobile platforms. Microsoft integrated Acompli with Outlook and launched a new version of Outlook for Apple (AAPL) iOS and Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) Android in late January 2015.

HockeyApp acquisition

In December 2014, Microsoft acquired HockeyApp. Its peer Apple acquired Burstly, a provider of an in-app ad management platform called SkyRocket. Burstly was the parent company of TestFlight, a mobile app testing platform.

HockeyApp is a developer platform that has a suite of tools, including live crash reports, user feedback tools, a beta distribution platform, and test analysis. HockeyApp works across Windows Phone as well as Android and iOS, and allows users to manage beta testing and analytics for apps running on Apple iOS, Google Android, Windows Phone, and Mac OS X.

The HockeyApp acquisition enables Microsoft to integrate app analytics for iOS and Android apps into Visual Studio’s Application Insights feature. Mobile developers who use Microsoft’s development environment will be able to track the performance of their apps on other mobile platforms through Visual Studio.

Microsoft wants to enhance its developer tools

All these strategic acquisitions, especially HockeyApp, indicate that Microsoft is hoping to diversify its developer tools so that it can build better mobile apps and extend its services to other mobile platforms beyond Windows. As we’ll see in the next parts of the series, Microsoft is taking all possible steps to expand its software products to other mobile operating systems.