Microsoft is buying anything not bolted to the floor right now. With 1.2 billion users and thousands of marketers depending on their Office suite, we predict what software acquisitions could also happen in 2021.

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What moves has Microsoft made recently to boost their services?

• Microsoft acquired Nuance Communications for approx. 20 billion at the beginning of April.
• Nuance has been a pioneer in text to speech technology.
• The company has recently pivoted to AI solutions for healthcare (also finance, retail, and other industries).
• Their current focus has been on on creating conversational AI for support and customer service.
• “Together, Nuance and Microsoft will accelerate innovation and continue to advance the next generation of conversational AI solutions as we mutually gain even greater focus, highly specialized resources, and global scale to better serve our customers.”

Why is Microsoft on a buying spree lately?

• Microsoft is trying to fill the gaps where their competitors aren’t.

  • Amazon has leapfrogged them to become #1 in cloud computing.

  • Apple has a firm hold on wearables with Google and Amazon trying to catch up.

     

• Microsoft is trying to reign supreme in two areas:

  • The living room with xBox and their purchases of a ton of major video game companies.

  • The home office by making Office THE one-stop productivity suite.

• As for Nuance, it seems like Microsoft is also considering jumping even further into trying to become tomorrow’s leader in artificial intelligence.

• At the end of 2020 they had $136 billion in cash to burn.

• Acquiring and merger already successful companies is easier than starting from scratch.

What’s your first prediction as to what Microsoft will buy next?

X.Ai

• They allow users to schedule meetings right from a pop-up link you can insert in an email.
• You can tell the bot what you need, and it will scan you and your other copied recipients’ emails and automatically book a meeting for everyone.
• Microsoft needs to get more chat savvy across Outlook, Teams, and their Office suite and this tool can help professionals be more productive.
• Why should marketers care?
  • Salesforce just bought Slack, which is a HUGE deal for marketers spending less time using Microsoft’s tools, so buying X.ai can help keep users inside the ecosystem.

• Try out X.Ai

Grammarly

• Helps edit documents, emails, and other text for spelling and grammar mistakes. 
• Currently already available for Office software, Google Apps, and other web-based editors.
• Microsoft could make their personal productivity tools even more powerful with a tightly integrated spelling and grammar assistant. Typing professional emails, documents, newsletters, slide decks, etc. would be that much easier.

• Why should marketers care?
  • Microsoft already has deep insights and data to make Grammarly even better with their current portfolio in AI and machine learning. If you think Grammarly is good now - imagine it with the full resources Microsoft has!

• Try out Grammarly

Twitter

• Microsoft has been looking to get more into the social media space for years!
  • Bought LinkedIn, which fit nicely into their professional dominance focus
• For their living room dominance aspirations, they need a tool that could help people connect after work hours.
  • Tried to buy both Tik Tok and Pinterest in the past 3 years.
  • Buying Twitter would come with an established user base and lots of active influencers, which Microsoft has actively said they believe is the future of both gaming and social media.
• Why should marketers care?
  • The social media control grip would tighten even more if this happens - meaning Twitter would almost certainly become baked into Edge and Bing. It could result in a major usage shift with people loving it, or leaving it for more independent, emerging platforms. 

• If you've been living under a rock, try out Twitter!

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This content is from a recent episode of Growth Marketing for Martians, a podcast dedicated to discussing tomorrow's business growth tips -today!

Hosted by Rogelio Rodriguez and Jeff Lambert, these marketing Martians share an intergalactic love for learning and sharing with other podcast space travelers.

Tune in for new episodes each week! Until then, keep reaching for the stars!