Sunday, May 20, 2007

The Battle for Online Advertising -Microsoft makes its first major move


Since April this year I have been covering the battle for the Internet advertising market in this blog . I started the "Yahoo vs Google" section of this blog in April 11 with the Viacom -Yahoo deal , wherein Viacom chose Yahoo as its Internet advertising partner . Soon thereafter came the Google-DoubleClick deal which threatened to change the dynamics of the industry . This deal ensured that Google -a leader in the Internet search and text advert business build strategic capabilities in the graphic and banner advert segments. Yahoo responded soon enough through alliances with the McClathy newspaper group and acquisition of Right Media . While Yahoo and Google have been in the media for acquisitions and alliances for the a month and a half , Microsoft has not been sitting quite either . It was one of the participants in the DoubleClick sale process , and there has been talks of a Microsoft -Yahoo merger to try and halt Google's juggernaut .

The core objective of this frenzy has been to "build relationships (alliances) or invest in technology that can deliver the right advert to the right person at the right time across myriad online sites" . 18 May was another new height in this frenzy when Microsoft announced its intention to buy online advertising company aQuantive for a staggering USD 6.1 bn . This is the single largest Microsoft acqusition and signals its intent to build an Internet advertising business on its own . According to estimates the online advertising market in the USA is expected to be in the range of USD 29 -31 bn by 2010. The Microsoft -aQuantive acquisition is a deal which not only signifies Microsoft's serious intent to build its Internet advert business, but is also a very critical strategic move to protect its core software business . Google, the current leader in the online advert business is making inroads into traditional Microsoft territory by offering word processing and spreadsheets (Google spreadsheet, Writey) free . Therefore it is critical for Microsoft to de-risk its portfolio by getting into a new line of business and also protecting its tradional castle from the Google onslaught.

Keep watching , perhaps its time to start a separate section in this blog titled "Microsoft vs Google- The Clash of the Titans"......Yahoo has been left far behind.

2 comments:

Shreyasi Deb said...

Carry on...I watch updates on this news solely on your page :-)

DreamCatcher said...

ditto!