GYM (technology)

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GYM is an acronym for three companies that regularly buy small startup internet- or computer-related companies. The term refers to the companies Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft.

[edit] Companies bought by GYM

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

1997: Microsoft acquires WebTV, a TV-based internet service for dial up users. ^[1]
1998: Microsoft acquires Hotmail, a free e-mail service. ^[2]
January 1999: Yahoo! acquires GeoCities, a free webhosting service.
April 1999: Yahoo! acquires broadcast.com, a web radio company.
June 2000: Microsoft acquires Bungie Studios, securing the popular Halo video game series for its Xbox console.
August 2000: Yahoo! acquires eGroups.com, an email list management web site, and became part of Yahoo! Groups.^[3]
2000: Microsoft acquires Digital Anvil, video game developer that made the Starlancer series.
February 2001: Google acquired Deja.com, which provided a search engine to access an archive of Usenet newsgroup articles, and became Google Groups. ^[4]
May 2001: Microsoft acquires Ensemble Studios, video game developer that made the Age of Empires series.
2001: Yahoo! acquires LAUNCH media, an online radio station.
2001: Yahoo! acquires HotJobs, an online recruiting tool that later became Yahoo! HotJobs.
September 2002: Microsoft acquires Rare, video game developer that made GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark.

Note: Microsoft later reformed Bungie, Digital Anvil, Ensemble Studios and Rare all under one banner called Microsoft Game Studios.

October 2002: Yahoo! acquires Overture, a branded text-based pay-per-click (PPC) advertising service, similar to Google's AdWords. It was later rebranded Yahoo! Search Marketing
2003: Google acquires Pyra Labs to manage their blogger service, Blogger.com.
July 2004: Google acquires Picasa, both as stand-alone software and as a complement to their Blogger.com service.
July 2004: Yahoo! acquires Oddpost, a pay-for webmail service that has been rumored to help develop the new Yahoo! Mail beta.
October 2004: Google acquires Keyhole to manage their Google Maps service, and later to release Google Earth
December 2004: Microsoft acquires GIANT software, whose GIANT AntiSpyware later becomes Windows Defender.
March 2005: Yahoo! acquires Flickr, a photosharing service.
July 2005: Yahoo! acquires the rights to Konfabulator, a popular Widget engine.
August 2005: Yahoo! acquires DialPad, a VoIP provider.
October 2005: Yahoo! acquires Upcoming.org, a social events calendar.
December 2005: Yahoo! acquires Del.icio.us, a Social Bookmarking service.
Late 2005: Google purchases a small stake in AOL, a popular Internet Service Provider.
January 2006: Yahoo! acquires Webjay, a web-based playlist service.
March 2006: Google picks up Writely, an online word processor that was still in beta.
October 2006: Google acquires YouTube, a video-sharing website.
January 2007: Yahoo! acquires MyBlogLog, a blogging community service.