Google's wearOS (a version of Google's Android operating system designed for smartwatches and other wearables) struggled to compete with Apple's watchOS. Therefore, in 2020, it acquired fitness tracker Fitbit for $2.1 billion. This deal opens a gateway of opportunities for the tech giant to start producing its own company-branded smartwatch. Google is also absorbing the 31 million-plus active users who currently wear Fitbit health-tracking devices.
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Apple's $3 billion offer to buy Beats is the most expensive acquisition in the company's history. The tech giant has made dozens of acquisitions since the late '80s, but few have topped the billion-dollar mark. The Beats headphone lineup and Apple’s foundational software eventually lead to the creation of Apple Music.
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Former Apple executive Tony Fadell co-founded Nest in 2011 with backing from Google Ventures. Three years later, Google brought Nest in-house in a $3.2 billion deal. Nest's smart home lineup of thermostats, locks, and cameras are now the foundation of Google's smart home lineup. The deal gave Google a big push to compete with Amazon in the smart home market.
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In 2016, Walmart entered the e-commerce sphere by spending $3 billion on Jet.com to compete with Amazon. However, following the shutdown of the Jetblack personal shopping service Walmart formally folded Jet.com. According to reports, Walmart executives say the acquisition gave Walmart.com a boost and helped it expand into new categories.
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Verizon bought AOL and Yahoo – or Yahoo!, as it then was – in 2015 and 2017 for for $4.4 billion and $4.8 billion, respectively. Three years later, in 2021, Verizon announced it was selling the properties to Apollo Global Management in a deal said to be worth $5 billion, around half of the nearly $9 billion the telecom giant originally paid for them, and a fraction of the hundreds of billions the two companies were worth at their peaks.
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Former Microsoft chief, Steve Ballmer's $7.2 billion goodbye present in 2013 saddled the company with Nokia's handset business and mobile IP just before Satya Nadella took over as CEO. By the time the deal closed in 2014, Ballmer was gone. A year later, Microsoft wrote off $7.6 billion from the Nokia deal and announced 7,800 job cuts as Elop left the company.
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In one of the biggest tech acquisitions of its day, Oracle took control of the Java programming language by outbidding IBM for Sun Microsystems in 2009. The deal has had ripple effects on the developer world for years, but maybe its most lasting legacy is the almost decade-long legal battle between Google and Oracle over Java copyrights in the Android operating system. In 2021, Oracle lost that fight.
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Microsoft closed its $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype in 2011, and has since integrated the video chat service across its business and consumer app portfolio. The word "Skype" has even become a verb, though Zoom took a bite out of its market share in 2020.
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In May 2018, Walmart announced a $16 billion deal to take a 77 per cent stake in Indian e-commerce company Flipkart. The deal closed in August 2018 to expand Walmart's fight with Amazon to another one of the world's biggest markets. Walmart now has a major foothold in the region.
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Facebook's most expensive acquisition was not Instagram ($1 billion) or Oculus ($2 billion), but its $22 billion deal to buy messaging app WhatsApp. Originally valued at $16 billion in early 2014, the price tag ballooned to $22 billion by October 2014 when the deal closed due to the soaring value of Facebook stock at the time.
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Of all Microsoft's expensive acquisitions on this list, its biggest one ever was the $26.2 billion deal to buy LinkedIn. By the time the deal closed in late 2016, Microsoft had already begun enacting plans to integrate the social network for professionals with Office 365 and its sales and business software offerings.
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IBM’S $34 billion all-cash acquisition of open-source powerhouse Red Hat was one of the blockbuster deals of 2018. The enterprise software company has a broad portfolio of open-source software, including its Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) distribution, its JBoss enterprise app platform, OpenStack hybrid cloud platform, and its OpenShift container service. The deal closed in 2019, with Red Hat becoming its own unit of the company operating under IBM Cloud.
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Though Google continues to produce and sell smartphones under its Pixel line, the company used to make smartphones in collaboration with Motorola. That relationship eventually turned into an outright acquisition. In 2011, Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.
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One of the richest deals is Dell and equity firm Silver Lake's $67 billion acquisition of EMC in 2015. Combining Dell's offerings with EMC allowed Dell to push further into corporate computing services, and it allowed EMC to escape pressure from investors to stem ongoing business declines.
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In January 2022, Microsoft said it’s buying video game publisher Activision Blizzard for almost $69 billion, a price that would narrowly eclipse the richest US tech deal in history.
Image Credit: Bloomberg
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