In fact, most industry pundits agree that
Microsoft didn't win very much at all at the end of the day. The company invested $240 million for a crumb of equity (1.6%) and a sales-repping job for a company that now appears to be obligated only
to treat Microsoft like any tiny minority investor (i.e., send them some financial info once a quarter).
Indeed, for a company that has $23.4 billion in cash, a $240 million investment for a 1.6% is hardly noteworthy. "Microsoft sneezes that much up in day," Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Charles Di Bona told Business Week (link: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2007/tc20071024_654439.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories ). Of course the real winner, in what amounted to little more than an image arms race between Google and Microsoft, is Facebook.