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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.'"
Will have its addresses as the newest addition to my hosts file.
My humor is probably your flamebait
In an attempt to foil Microsoft's plans for internet advertising domination, Google has upped the bidding to eleventy billion dollars, a number which does not even exist. Yet.
Blerg.
I wonder if Microsoft is still going to complain about Google's purchase of Doubleclick....
In fact, all replies to this story should be immediately compared to the comments of Google's purchase. It'll be interesting to see the people that backed Microsoft's position that Google did something evil now commenting on this news.
And people say there's no Microsoft-cult.. Pftt.
Ahh, I see they've decided to innovate some more to compete with Google...
This guy's the limit!
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).
$1/per pair of eyeballs on the planet.
Trolling is a art,
This strikes me as an expensive (but possibly effective) way to ensure that silverlight-based adverts get shoved in our faces.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
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
As a gesture to welcome the new acquisition, Aquantive received a shipment of new office furniture at their soon to be headquarters in the Microsoft complex. A welcome note from CEO Steve Ballmer was attached to the shipment. Current Aquantive employees were happy about the gesture but questioned why there appeared to be disportionately more chairs than employees. The estimates were a 5 to 1 ratio. In a separate shipment, bolts, bars, and steel plates were also delivered to the offices. An attached, unsigned note read: "You're going to need these for the chairs. Good luck and Godspeed."
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
aQuantive has ~900 million in assets, and a current shareholder equity of ~600 million. Net revenue is the first quarter of this year was ~14 million.
Microsoft is aquiring them for 6 billion? Sounds about as dumb-ass as Google with DoubleClick (what, 31x premium?).
aQuantive stock is now 64.75 *up 27.88*. I missed it.
As a Microsoft shareholder, I don't like this. What a waste of money! I mean, paying 3 billion would be high, but 6 billion?
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
But I think this is a sign of Microsoft Panicing.
IMHO is that since Google bought Doubleclick(Yuk) they have been lookin at getting slice of the Online Advertising Market.
However (Dons invertment managers hat) to pay a premium of 68% over yesterday's close for each shae is just plain crazy.
Ok, I know that there are billions of dollars in cash sitting in the Bank of Microsoft but really...
If I were a Microsoft shareholder (and thankfully, I'm not) I would be looking for some detailed explanations as to why the paid so much over the odds for this business. Its not as if they were in a bidding war (or were they?)
68% is just too heavy a premium to pay.
This has all the signs of panic.
Balmer wants to buy up an Ad company before Google buys them all. but 68%, Really. this is really bad economics and seems like we have returned to the Dot.Com Bubble days.
Google must be laughing their socks off.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
Just edit your TV's hosts file.
/* No Comment */
New exit strategy - sell to Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo.
[Insert pithy quote here]
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?