Processing .....please wait.. 
The article has been forwarded.... 
Was Microsoft eyeing a Facebook buyout?
By siliconindia
|
Friday, 10 December 2010, 19:06 IST
Paris: Way before Facebook became a phenomenon that it is today, Microsoft had made many a attempt in buying out the social network company in 2007. The year when the two companies made their partnership deal public, Microsoft had also offered to acquire Facebook.
Fritz Lanman, Senior Director of Corporate Strategy and Acquisitions, Microsoft confirmed the news in the Le Web conference in Paris, reports TechCrunch. The acquisition story had first surfaced in David Kirkpatrick's book 'The Facebook Effect.' Lanman said, "Yeah we tried to acquire Facebook. It had a lot of similarities to Microsoft back in the day."
While Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook, it was reported that Steve Ballmer offered Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg $15 billion to sell the company to the software giant.
Today, both the companies partner together in Microsoft's search engine Bing wherein users can look for information about their friends' Likes in Facebook. The recently launched Facebook messaging service also has Microsoft Docs integration.
Reports reveal that Facebook was an acquisition target for many companies in 2007 including Yahoo! and Google. But the fact that Facebook still remains an independent entity is solely attributed to Zuckerberg's aspiration to be the captain of the ship.
