Microsoft has acquired very few products, and of those a shockingly slim number have succeeded.

I can only think of Excel as being the real survivor here. Others, like SoftImage, were a fleeting acquisition. Many more were buried alive.

DOS is a acquired product, for $50k? :-)

They only finally disable cmd.exe in the latest update.

.bat files still run.

Somehow I overlooked that, but it's true, that's their first and most significant acquisition.

They didn't buy the company or talent, mind you, just the software.