The INQUIRER'S Top 10 Sizzling Stakes

ABU DHABI is now in AMD but there have been plenty of other times when taking a stake in a company has had a profound impact. Sometimes it’s a life-saver, other times an indication of predatory intent. Almost a stake through the heart if you like. Not everybody likes a stake but sometimes you have to take what’s on the table and there’s no doubt that the financial upside is juicy. And when the future of the company is at stake, what else are you going to do but take the stake?

If you’ve got an appetite for more stake, here are 10 that rocked the tech world.

10. Intel in Freedom4. Intel wants to make WiMax ubiquitous by putting it into every laptop chipset. And if that doesn’t work, it also has a JV with the former Pipex to be a WiMAX ISP.

9. IBM in Lenovo. Ten years ago you would have got long odds on an American business icon selling its interest in one of the most influential products ever invented to a Chinese company. IBM made the PC but was never too clever about monetising the product when it became the most monstrous hit since Blueberry Hill. And now your ThinkPad doesn’t even the famous old insignia on it, although IBM has a minority stake in Lenovo.

8. HP in Nanolithosolutions. HP took equity in this developer of semiconductor manufacturing technology just in case it’s able to pull off its aim of making chips with wires just a few atoms wide. It’s not rocket science; it’s far more complicated than that.

7. Google in 23andMe. The G-men looked in the sock drawer and found a paperclip, some lint, a stamp, a betting slip and $3.9 million to invest in this biotech startup earlier this year. Why? Maybe it was the exciting prospects of the sector? Or the sitcom-style company name? Or the fact that Sergey Brin is married to the co-founder...

6. BT in FON. Nobody is quite sure where we’re going with wireless broadband but just in case we’re going in the direction of shared Wi-Fi communities, BT last month took a stake in Spanish startup FON.

5. Larry Ellison in Salesforce.com. Salesforce is run by Ellison’s old compadre Marc Benioff but the companies maintain a public air of mutual contempt. Salesforce has been a stock market darling ever since it floated in 2004 but the company’s mantra of ‘no software’ is anathema to Oracle’s reliance on good old client/server and Benioff likes to mock his former paymasters as merchants of stone-age software. Taking to heart the old adage about keeping your friends close and enemies closer, Ellison retains a five per cent interest in Salesforce, although he insists that he’d like that chunk of change to evaporate. Some wouldn’t be surprised if he went the whole hog and Oracle bought Salesforce. Just in case, software as a service really is the new God, Ellison also plenty of cash in on-demand ERP firm NetSuite.

4. Microsoft in Apple. It was a rub-your-eyes moment in 1997 when Steve Jobs stood on the MacWorld stage with Bill Gates and announced that Microsoft was taking a stake in Cupertino’s finest. Not since the lion laid down with the lamb had such an unlikely pair appeared together. But Apple needed the dough and Bill needed Steve to stick around in the same way that a boxer needs an opponent to be declared champ, even if he's a bum. Apple never looked back and would Microsoft would have pumped in the cash had it known what was to come?

3. Microsoft in Facebook. How much? No, seriously, how much was it? No, I don’t mean for the company, just the little one and a bit per cent? You what? They paid TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY MILLION DEAD PRESIDENTS FOR THAT?

2. Microsoft in Corel. The Crazy Canadians had gone into a nasty tailspin but Microsoft was there to prop up the company by taking a quarter of the firm in 2000. Why, when former Michael Cowpland had been doing everything he could to bring down the Evil Empire through suites, Java pushes, plans for a network computer, and attempts to combine with Borland/Inprise? Maybe because Corel was one of the first ISVs to dive deep into Windows apps. That’s what friends are for, as the song goes.

1. Cisco and Intel in VMware. When you’re hot, you’re hot and all the boys were chasing the sweetheart of virtualisation this year. As Pat Gelsinger has noted, if nothing else it was a smart bit of financial planning on Intel’s behalf. The paper profit on the $218 million investment is more than many well-known companies turn over in a year. And if Intel gets the inside track on the most important new software company since Google, that would also do nicely, we're sure. µ