Software
Bargains Lure Buyers:
Microsoft Buys Connectix
Google Acquires Blogger
As
we’ve noted before, the current marketplace, with venture capital
hard to come by, and software buyers hard to find has been tough on
young (and even more established) software firms.
This has resulted in a buyers’ market for well-established
companies with cash in hand and a desire to fill out their
portfolios with good software at bargain prices.
Some
more buying occurred this week.
Microsoft Buys Connectix
Connectix
Corporation sold not the company, but most of its current software
offering, its client and server Virtual Machine technology. The buyer is Microsoft.
Connectix
software permitted Windows machines to run a variety of other
operating systems and software, most notably Macintosh, OS/2,
NetWare, and Linux. It
also provides software that permits Macintosh systems prior to OS X
to run a virtual Windows PC
Microsoft
seems to be most interested in the acquisition’s technology for
the possibility of consolidating multiple NT4 users onto Windows
2003 servers. It could
also be useful for assisting other legacy users in the migration
process.
The
Microsoft Windows products will go to Windows development divisions
and might, over time, be integrated into the Windows Operating
System. The Macintosh
products are to be integrated with Microsoft’s California-based
Macintosh Software Group which focuses on Office and Internet
Explorer software for the Mac.
Connectix’
technical staff will be moving to Microsoft.
Their support staff will continue to support the acquired
products for a six month transition period.
Connectix itself seems uncertain whether they will then close
down the firm or whether they will once again reinvent themselves
into another business.
Meanwhile,
bloggers watched with interest as Google, one of the most trafficked
sites on the Internet, decided to buy Pyra Labs and its Blogger web
site and software for an undisclosed sum.
Founder Evan Williams and his staff of six will join Google.
Blogger
is generally acknowledged to be the first of the blogging software
developers, a new communication phenomenon.
Blogger itself claims to have one million registered users. Other important blogging developers include Movable Type,
Radio Userland and LiveJournal.com.
Weblogs
(“blogs”) are a new form a web-based publishing. They are intended to let anyone publish on-line without the
need to learn technical issues or use an intermediary such as a web
guru. Blogs may be on
any subject, from personal journals or diaries to topical exchanges
on any subject. Their
structure makes it easy to create and update a chronological
publication and, if desired, to invite others to comment or
participate. We have a
blog at http://amywohl.weblogger.com,
which is generally (but not always) about topics in the computer
industry.
Google
has been adding publishing features to its search engine for some
time. They have not yet
commented on exactly what they intend to do with Blogger, but we’d
expect them to offer blogging opportunities to a community they’ll
grow around their site. Since
Google indexes all the main blogs, whether they’ll favor their own
above others may become an issue.
Microsoft Looks At Blogs, Too
And
we can’t help noting that Microsoft is testing an apparently
internally developed Blog software product by offering it as part of
its ASP.Net Community Starter Kit during its VSLive! Developer
conference last week. This
weblog builder is freely downloadable and Microsoft is hoping that
community sites will use it. It
confirms that some Microsoft sites are already using it and that it
intends to use it to offer blogging on MSN.
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