Microsoft failed in its big bid to buy Yahoo, but it still found plenty of companies to spend its money on during the past year.
The Redmond company paid out a total of $8.8 billion on 21 acquisitions in its recently completed fiscal year, according to a regulatory filing last week. Most of the money went toward Microsoft's $5.9 billion purchase of aQuantive, the Seattle-based digital advertising company.
But even without that unusually large deal, Microsoft's spending on acquisitions would have grown considerably.