Startup Addict Musings

Microsoft is a company so ridiculously successful and possesses so much cash, it simply cannot stand companies (like Google) that add any meaningful competition to the game of web domination. I came across an article in InfoWorld that totally floored me. Apparently it is okay for Microsoft to make purchases in the online advertising area with the aQuanitive acquisition for $6 billion along with smaller diversifed acquisitions like European mobile ad company ScreenTonic (oh did I mention AdECN as well). But for Google to score a nice purchase price ($3 billion) on ad powerhouse DoubleClick just won’t do for the Redmond forefather. Let’s not forget the third player Yahoo playing Pacman on RightMedia for a cool $680 Mill.

Microsoft as a result is launching an entire campaign against Google stating too much consumer privacy information and clickstream will be at stake if the M&A goes through. Now don’t get me wrong…. a valid point and one that should be investigated accordingly, but coming from Microsoft is laugh out loud funny. I mean if you look up Monopoly in the dictionary it says Microsoft. The point I’m trying to make is the online Ad market is clearly heating up and just like the traditional television networks there will be continued consolidation and a few conglomerate players in the online ad space at the end of the day. I just think that Microsoft needs to realize the web is more volatile and uncertain of a frontier than the brilliant but simplistic bridge of operating system to hardware in the Windows world.

Tags: Web 2.0 and Beyond //