What will Microsoft do with its billions?
SeattlePI | at | by Mike
Microsoft Corp. is sitting on a $40.5 billion pile of cash, and its shareholders are getting antsy about doing something with it. Microsoft has made the occasional strategic acquisition in its history, mainly to plug a hole in its product offerings -- Great Plains or Visio, for example. It has not made any bet-the-company deals, which is good, but then it could be argued that Microsoft is the industry.
So if Microsoft isn't going to buy a whole lot of things with its $40.5 billion, what will it do with the cash? Invest in new product and technology development? Sure -- but product development is not the capital-intensive and time-hungry activity for Microsoft that it is for The Boeing Co. and a new plane model or a biotech spending years getting a new drug through clinical trials. Even as major a project as a new operating system doesn't mean retooling an entire assembly line or building a new factory.