15 largest transactions on the Internet

Blog Complex has prepared the top 15 acquisitions of companies on the World Wide Web in history. Translation - under the cut.


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15. Oracle buys ATG

Transaction amount: $ 1 billion
Year: 2010

You may not know ATG or Art Technology Group by name, but more than likely you have seen their work. This company has created sites of such giants as BestBuy and Tommy Hilfiger. Oracle paid $ 1 billion for ATG and for its audience in 2010.

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14. AOL buys MapQuest

Transaction amount: $ 1.1 billion
Year: 1999


At the end of the 20th century, AOL paid a little over a billion dollars for MapQuest. Bad that he did not see Google Maps literally "around the corner."

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13. Microsoft buys Fast Search & Transfer

Transaction amount : $ 1.2 billion
Year: 2008

Microsoft buys FAST, a Norwegian company that specializes in search engine development. In 2009, the Norwegian police found out that the company carried out illegal fraud in 2006 and 2007. After that, the ex-CEO John Lerwick resigned in disgrace.

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12. Amazon buys Zappos

Transaction amount: $ 1.2 billion
Year: 2009

Zappos.com has made a name for itself by selling shoes with discounts. By 2009, it was the largest online shoe store in the world. He then expanded and offered all kinds of clothes and accessories. In the same year, Amazon announced the purchase of its junior competitor for $ 1.2 billion.

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11. eBay buys PayPal

Transaction amount: $ 1.5 billion
Year: 2002

One of the first major sites of the first decade of the XXI century - eBay auction acquired PayPal, because it is a safe and user-friendly payment system. Some PayPal employees went to work in such promising start-ups like YouTube and Facebook.

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10. Yahoo buys Overture Services Inc.

Transaction amount: $ 1.63 billion
Year: 2003

In 2003, Yahoo! uploaded $ 1.63 billion for Overture Services inc., owners of search engines like AltaVista and AllTheWeb. This purchase was supposed to help Yahoo! in the fight against google. By 2009, Yahoo! strengthened, because it was announced that the search will work under the control of Bing.

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9. Google buys YouTube

Transaction amount: $ 1.65 billion
Year: 2006

In 2006, Google attracted attention by acquiring a one-year video hosting service. Critics doubted that YouTube, which has already received complaints from film studios and music studios, is worth its money. Google doesn't invest in YouTube, but today, the birthplace of millions of memes is the third most popular site on the Internet, after Facebook and Google.

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8. eBay Buys Skype

Transaction amount: $ 2.6 billion
Year: 2005

EBay is back in the game, having bought Skype for an unexpected amount of $ 2.6 billion. By 2009, VoIP and video calling services were used in television shows such as Oprah and Who Millionaire. In the same year, eBay announced the sale of a controlling stake in Skype to a group of investors. In 2011, Skype was sold to Microsoft for a huge amount - $ 8.5 billion.

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7. Google buys DoubleClick

Transaction amount: $ 3.1 billion
Year: 2008

Google can afford to do almost anything, thanks to a successful business model - advertising. AdWords and AdSense bring in almost all of the company's revenue. In 2009, Googleplex paid $ 3.1 billion to achieve complete dominance in the advertising field by purchasing DoubleClick, an advertising company with an impressive list of customers.

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6. Cisco Systems Buys WebEx

Transaction amount: $ 3.2 billion
Year: 2007

Specializing in software for the corporate market, WebEx received a good amount from Cisco Systems in 2007. The $ 3.2 billion deal implied some reorientation for Cisco, known for its offline products.

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5. Yahoo buys GeoCities

Transaction amount: $ 3.6 billion
Year: 1999

GeoCities is a free web hosting service, which in 1999 was the third most popular website in the world, numbering 19 million unique users per month. Yahoo! I bought this company for $ 3.6 billion. But the limited functionality and high cost of the servers meant that time was running out. By the end of 2009, Yahoo! closed this service completely.

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4. AOL buys Netscape

Transaction amount: $ 4.2 billion
Year: 1998

In the 90s, AOL was not perceived as Google now, that is, a synonym for the word "Internet". Dial-up provider and a huge Internet service made a major contribution to the acquisition of the Netscape browser to rid itself of the tyranny of Microsoft Internet Explorer. Netscape was never able to distract users from IE, however, there were more browsers, so the project was closed. Several Netscape developers have moved to create Mozilla Firefox.

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3. Yahoo! buys Broadcast.com

Transaction amount: $ 5.7 billion
Year: 2001

Buying Broadcast.com by Yahoo! for $ 5.7 - the biggest bubble in the history of the Internet. This allowed us to make the name of the entrepreneur from Dallas - Mark Kyubana, a household name. Unfortunately for Yahoo !, the main function of Broadcast is to aggregate radio broadcasts. This feature did not provide competitive advantages and sustainable business models. Today you can hardly find signs of the existence of this site.

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2. Microsoft buys aQuantive

Transaction amount: $ 6 billion
Year: 2007

To improve its position in the online advertising market, Microsoft paid $ 6 billion by purchasing a digital marketing agency in 2007. aQuantive and all other services were subsequently rebranded and named “Microsoft Advertising”.

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1. Oracle buys Peoplesoft

Transaction amount: $ 10.3 billion
Year: 2004

The most costly takeover that lasted a year and a half was between Oracle and Peoplesoft, a manufacturer providing business software. Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO, probably did not lose too much to worry about it: this amount is a little over a third of his own capital.