Bijan captured some talking points from Chris Liddell (MS CFO) the other day in Boston and he outlined Microsoft’s acquisition strategy. Whilst there’s no guarantees that if you follow these points you’ll get your startup snapped up, they do provide some interesting insights into how the cogs work in the machine back in Redmond. Factoids you might find interesting:
- Microsoft acquires around 15-20 companies a year
- Microsoft spends roughly $10bn on R&D
- Microsoft spends roughly $2bn on acquisitions
- Dan’L Lewin’s team works closely with startups and are the guys to impress (check out their website, they are super friendly)
- Microsoft acquires companies to grow share in new markets, it won’t normally acquire in markets it already has presence in
As well as Dan’L’s team there’s also a tremendous amount of work done around the world by Microsoft Evangelists who are big networkers at startup events and other tech shindigs. They often introduce new and interesting companies they come across into the likes of Dan’L’s team and product teams so it’s worth getting to know your local Microsoft Evangelist – there’s a lot of them out there.
The best place to hunt them down is via our MSDN or TechNet websites where you can get in contact with them:
MSDN (developer evangelists)
TechNet (IT Pro evangelists)
For international evangelists the best place to head is the homepage for MSDN and TechNet where you’ll normally be presented with the contacts of your local evangelist in the developer connections portion of the page. (http://msdn.microsoft.com http://technet.microsoft.com)
Another great program to be aware of is Bizspark which provides startups really cheap Microsoft software, professional support and other great resources to get you started. The program is run by Dan’L’s team out of the valley and is a great place to get noticed.
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