On October 24, 2007 Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million. This was a massive steap for Microsoft because Google at the same time has been trying to buy a stake in the company. It was crucial that Microsoft got this stake in the company and this has become more apparent than ever. Google owns nearyl everything on the internet from YouTube, to Blogger and Picasa as well as a whole host of other little projects. What was bad news about these aqusitions for Microsoft was that they all used Google search and were all very polular and people had to use a Google ID. When you have a Google ID you are bound to look at using other Google’s other services and loads fo Google services favours the very successful, “Google everywhere strategy”. The Microsoft Facebook deal was a massive boost to Microsoft online services, mainly because Microsoft’s online businesses make a loss every year and Facebook is very profitable. So the aqusition meant that Microsoft would be making mony from the world’s most popular social networking site without having to anything except hand over some money. The deal was also cycalogical because just around when Microsoft bought the small stake in Facebook, Facebook became the world’s number 1 social networking site which was bad the Google MySpace deal.  For once Microsoft had beaten Google in an online battle. The deal was also a massive boost to Microsoft services because in the deal Microsoft got special rights and is repsonsible fro the banner-ads on Facebook. Also the search on Facebook is powered by Live Search which was a long overdue shot in the arm for the at the time beleagured search engine. Facebook also started to intergrate with Microsoft’s Windows Live services such as Hotmail, Home, Spaces, Groups and PopFly services. This now favoured Windows Live services over Google’s services which now meant that Microsoft would be making more cash from online ads and starting to get a foothold on Google’s massive Internet Empire.

Now what is even better for Microsoft is that MySpace is beginning to die and many analysts predict that it will be gone in two years. This is like music to Microsoft’s ears because it would then mean that there would be no Google search on any social networking site. Employees of Facebook are now beginning to cash in on their shares so Microsoft may be able to increase their share and may even be able to get the Bing logo in the search bar?