Here’s a dream scenario:

Start a technology or internet-based company. Grow and nurture that company over the next 1-5 years. Generate some nice revenue and publicity from your venture. Become an acquisitiion target for $50 million-$1 billion. Sell out and live happily ever after.

That’s the dream of most technology company founders. Well Microsoft corporation may have just made it a little easier to achieve that dream.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says that instead of the company pouring tons of dollars into research and development to come up with the next big thing, his company will have a change in strategy. Ballmer says that the company plans to invest more in small acquisitions costing between “$50 million and $1 billion”.

Lord knows they’ve got the capital to do it. The company is sitting on $23 billion in cash and has already purchased 23 companies in 2007…with the biggest deal being the purchase of aQuantive for $6 billion.

At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, CEO Steve Ballmer said, “We’ll probably buy 20 companies a year for the next five years”.

There are Rumors that Microsoft is already looking to buy into the Social Networking site Facebook. Some are also saying that Microsoft is considering purchasing a stake in Yahoo to try and team up on Google.

So get your business plans tight people. Microsoft is watching!

During a spirited discussion at the Web 2.0 Summit taking place in San Francisco, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer compared his company’s attempt to become a respected player in web search to Google.

In his normal passionate kind of way, Ballmer said Microsoft’s aspirations to become a web search giant is like when you’re just three years old, and you’re in there playing basketball with a 12-year-old”. “You’re growing up quick and getting better every day, and you’ve got all the potential in world, and it may take you ’til you’re seven, eight, nine or 10, but you’re gonna dunk and you’re gonna dunk on the other guy some day, Johnny.”

Ashutosh Roy, eGain’s co-founder, has served as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of eGain since 1997.  In October 2003, the head of Mountain View-based eGain asked the board to cut his annual salary to $24 per year. The company was in restructuring/cost cutting mode at the time. Roy’s $24 annual salary makes him one of the “poorest” CEOs in town.  Read. 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says an initial public offering for Facebook Inc. is years away.  He did say however, that the company is working on a major round of financing.  Microsoft has been the suspected sugar daddy reportedly looking to invest some $500 million for a 5% stake.

When asked at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco how his company planned to position itself for growth, Zuckerberg replied “we might do something in ads.”  When pressed for more info on the subject, he refused to elaborate.   

According the New York Times, Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo started a plan to sell tons of stock over a period just before the sub-prime markets tanked. In fact Mozilo twice raised the number of shares that could be sold: once in December 2006, when Countrywide stock was $40.50, then again in February, when it hit a high of $45.03.

Over the course of that time Mozilo made hundreds of millions from the stock sales while his company and the rest of the mortgage industry saw one of the biggest declines in history.

Of course, Mozillo didn’t have a crystal ball. I mean he didn’t know that the market was going to tank the way it did. But what he did know is that an unprecedented number of Americans were buying houses…many of whom were financing their purchases using risky interest-only and variable rate loans in order to afford them.

Now that the market is in a steep decline, Mozilo has made his millions but has also announced that he plans to lay off over 12,000 Countrywide workers.

So the question becomes, how do you classify what Mozilo did? With hindsight as our guide, was he a sell-out? Or was he a genius to have the foresight to employ smart investment strategy and see huge personal gains?

Well the treasurer of North Carolina has written the head of the SEC and asked the agency to look into the sales. “As an investor and a Countrywide shareholder, I was shocked to learn that C.E.O. Angelo Mozilo apparently manipulated his trading plans to cash in, just as the sub-prime crisis was heating up and Countrywide’s fortunes were cooling off,” Mr. Moore wrote.

How do you feel about Angelo’s move?

News Corp. has hired former HP CEO Carly Fiorina to be a contributor to its new Fox Business Network, due to launch next week.

Fiorina could become the next Maria Bartiromo (Anchor for CNBC) or Katie Couric (CBS). Fox did not say how often Miss Fiorina would be contrbuting, but the former HP Exec is considered to be charismatic, engaging, extremely intelligent and good-looking by the business community. That combination could make her the next household name in news.

The thing that stands out among the successful female network news anchors is that they each have sex appeal which helps draw in their predominately male viewing audiences. Fiorina definitely brings that quality to the table.

“I am pleased to have the opportunity to continue to speak out on issues of vital concern to our economy and our nation,” Fiorina said in a written statement.

The question is, how will she stand up to the two Queens of Network and Business News?