TechScape: With a $67bn takeover in the works, is it finally game on for Microsoft?

With the acquisition of game developer Activision Blizzard in the works, the company is facing investigations by trade commissions the world over. If the deal goes through, could it help the forgotten tech giant gain new relevance?

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Microsoft is the forgotten tech giant. Despite being the world's second-largest public company by market capitalisation, it got left out of the snappy acronym for the big five - FAANG - alongside Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google, in favour of Netflix, a company seven percent its size. Even when you add them to the equation (and GAFAM seems the most popular ordering, though given Google and Facebook's rebrands to Alphabet and Meta, it should really be MAMAA), Microsoft has avoided the scrutiny its peers have been subjected to.

Part of that is to do with where the companies make their profits. Microsoft's consumer brands are large and popular, but don't feel like unstoppable behemoths compared to the rest of the MAMAAs. Amazon towers over e-commerce; Meta owns social networking; Alphabet dominates web browsers, email, and search; while Apple practically prints money with a phone that can credibly be called the most successful consumer product ever released. Microsoft, though, makes its money through enterprise sales and cloud computing, and its unbroken power over desktop operating systems seems like a relic of the past rather than a meaningful focus of attention in the present.