Yat Siu, the founder and CEO of Outblaze, has noted on his Facebook status that his online messaging and collaboration service has been bought by IBM, details are found here.

I have mentioned in my Twitter before that there has been a handful of acquisitions by large corporations in Asia and US, late last year and into this year. I am now listing them here. With this intent purchase by IBM, the lists now includes Hong Kong.

Here’s the list of startups that I’m aware of (and therefore probably incomplete) that have been acquired since September 2008:

• TNC, blogging platform (Korea), acquired by Google Korea
• Me2day, microblogging platform (Korea), acquired by Naver
• J2M, online gaming (Korea), acquired by EA Sports
• Roiworld, casual gaming/avatar startup (Korea), acquired by Lifetime Networks
• Outblaze, email and messaging service (Hong Kong), acquired by IBM
• Update: OpenSourceFood, cooking social network (Japan), acquired by Tsavo Media
• Other acquisition include Focus Media (China) by Sina

It has been a busy shopping season at the end of the year for companies in Asia and US and it has been good for Korean startups. And although the economy is bleak and despite recent news that Google is shutting down a number of services they acquired earlier, I do expect more acquisitions down the road for startups in Asia.

Possible related posts:

• Google Korea Acquires Blog Platform TNC
• Web 2.0 in Asia
• Chang Kim of Web20Asia
• Stats to back it.
• Barcamp Hong Kong 2008, This Saturday Sept. 06