Microsoft

Microsoft is a multinational technology company that leads in producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and other services. Microsoft, through its products, also helps many other companies to find users to integrate computing into their daily lives. To always better itself and its services, to satisfy the needs of the customers, Microsoft has been acquiring companies for diverse purposes. Let's look at Microsoft’s acquisitions in 2021.

RiskIQ

Since organizations are increasingly looking towards the cloud to store every single detail of their businesses, with this also comes challenges concerning cyberattacks. So, Microsoft acquired RiskIQ on July 12, 2021. It is a leader in global threat intelligence and attacks surface management to help Microsoft's customers build a more safe view along with world-class threat intelligence with more than a decade of experience. 

RiskIQ supports customers to discover and access safely into the Microsoft AWS, cloud, and from their supply chains. Organizations can leverage RiskIQ threat intelligence to gain context into the actual source of tools, attacks and also the attackers. 

Microsoft is already a leader in delivering end-to-end cloud-native security with its Micro-soft Azure Defender, Micro-soft 365 Defender, and Microsoft Azure Sentinel that can detect, protect, and respond to threats and attacks.

ReFirm Labs

With Microsoft facing challenges in securing devices and supply chains, it acquired ReFirm Labs on June 2, 2021. Microsoft thinks that firmware is not the future threat but it is vital to secure it now as more devices can flood the market in the future. ReFirm Labs can enrich Microsoft’s firmware analysis and security capabilities across all devices forming an intelligent edge ranging from servers to IoT. 

Microsoft and ReFirm Labs can together provide innovation and value to their customers by helping them monitor, discover, and update their network-connected devices. The technology of ReFirm Labs can add amazing benefits to Micro-soft helping to deliver protection from chips to the cloud.

Kinvolk 

The ability to run Kubernetes anywhere has always been a priority for Azure customers. To support this evolution, Micro-soft has acquired Kinvolk to boost its container-optimized innovation on April 29, 2021.  Kinvolk has a rich history of innovation in open source cloud-native distributed computing, eBPF, Kubernetes, Linux, and CoreOS. Microsoft brings the experience of the Kinvolk team to Azure to design and develop Azure Kubernetes Services and Azure Arc.

Nuance Communications, Inc

Microsoft has acquired Nuance Communications, Inc for accelerating its cloud strategy for healthcare on April 12, 2021. This acquisition facilitates the delivery of new cloud and AI capabilities across other industries and especially healthcare. Nuance is a pioneer of conversational AI and cloud-based ambient clinical intelligence. Some of the company's products include Dragon Medical One, Dragon Ambient eXperience,  and PowerScribe. Nuance also provides AI expertise and customer engagement solutions across Interactive Voice Response, virtual assistants across all industries. This can help Microsoft’s cloud, including Azure, Teams and Dynamic 365 to deliver better customer engagement and security solutions.

The Marsden Group 

Micro-soft acquired The Marsden Group on March 16, 2021. The Marsden Group, a pioneer in industrial technology innovation and prototyping, helped ist enterprise customers envision the prototype and implement solutions to their businesses, employees and customers.  This can benefit Microsoft by enhancing its ability to create new customer value through experimentation and deep industry solutions based on Microsoft’s edge, cloud and AI products.