Microsoft to purchase Visio

Microsoft Corp. said that it agreed to buy

Visio Corp, a maker of technical drawing software, for stock valued $1.3

billion.

Under the agreement Seattle-based Visio will become a division

operating within Microsoft's business productivity group, which includes

the Office suite of products, the software giant's biggest and most

profitable business line, Microsoft Senior Vice President Bob Muglia said.

The deal gives Microsoft a popular line of diagramming and technical

drawing software, to be sold alongside its dominant Office family of

personal-computer application programs.

Vision has recently struggled with the transition from sales to

software through retail stores and distributors to direct sales to

corporations through its own sales force. Microsoft’s powerful marketing

machine should accelerate that process, and add to the earnings of the

business’s new parent quickly, the companies said.