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Microsoft Buys Ad Firm for $6 Billion
bain writes "The BBC is reporting that Microsoft has agreed to buy the digital marketing firm Aquantive, in what will be its biggest ever acquisition. The software giant spent almost $6 billion acquiring the agency, in its first bid to tackle the online advertising market. 'The deal is expected to be completed in the first half of 2008, subject to regulation. Microsoft said the expensive price tag was worth it to access the complementary technology of Aquantive. The firm will continue to operate from Seattle as part of Microsoft's online operations, and will help the software giant broaden the scope of services its MSN consumer internet unit can offer. Microsoft is the latest technology firm to pounce on the shrinking independent online advertising sector.'"
Just so you see that was a bargain for Google to acquire Doubleclick for that amount, and how much Microsoft was yearning for acquiring an advertising company, in order to better compete with Google on other fronts (instead of letting the real battle go to the "software as a service" front).
Good move for Google, they paid half the price for a better known entity.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Sorta suprised you would need to block an advertising firm just because MS bought them. Would think most ad firms would already be blocked as a matter of course
I find it amusing, according to MS and others, that Google "overpaid" for Double-Click...#1 in the market. Not to mention the cries from Redmond of monopoly. However now, MS dishes out nearly twice the amount for the #2 in the market. Oh the irony. Google schools MS again.
I find it amusing, according to MS and others, that Google "overpaid" for Double-Click...#1 in the market. Not to mention the cries from Redmond of monopoly. However now, MS dishes out nearly twice the amount for the #2 in the market. Oh the irony. Google schools MS again.
That, and this is what I find interesting. Kmart bought Sears for $11 billion. Sears has been around for a number of years. They are known for their kenmore (albeit rebranded) and craftsman product lines. They have real inventory, real stores, and real employees. Chrysler was recently sold for 7.4 billion. Well, 80% of it, but I'm talking ballpark figures here.
Today, MS buys Aquantive. I've never heard of them before now. I would imagine this amounts to a database and some office space and maybe a website or something.
I saw a headline the other day where the kid who made facebook (just a website), refused to sell for $2billion.
To me, this seems overinflated. I guess that your ROI on "real" things like sears and chrysler dwarfs databases and websites.
I guess this makes sense when you think that we are in the information/service age and we have left the industrial age, but this still seems a bit strange.
See, here's the thing. Real Things are really hard to make. Research, development, testing, certification, more testing, marketing, shipping, storing, selling, and maybe even shipping one more time make for a lot of money invested to not a lot of return, considering all the effort that goes into them. Sure, you might say that Sears makes a lot of Real Things and has a lot of Real Assets and employs a lot of Real People, but at the end of the day, are its profits in line with the amount of money invested to do all this Real Stuff?
For an investor, your ROI in Google is higher (now) than Sears because Google doesn't have as much Real Whatever to build and maintain. Sears does. Are the amounts of money pouring into these databases and websites inflated right now? Yeah, probably. But the returns are at least theoretically there. The same thing happened with railroads and electricity around the turn of the century, but these things are now so legacy and so embedded that they've become nothing but commodities.
The web is essentially the boomtown of the 21st century, like all the other industries (manufacturing or service) that have passed into the sphere of commodity. After information has -- and it will, I think, someday -- become a commodity, we'll find something else to form another speculative bubble around with a high ROI. It's the way of things. Today is no different from yesterday. The numbers just look bigger now.
What is is all that is. Isn't that obvious?