Microsoft indicated its determination to move against Google when it dropped no less than $6 billion on aQuantive, the same amount the company invested in building Windows Vista. But while the $6 billion for Windows Vista are, in Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' opinion, the "best $6 billion he ever spent", the same remains to be seen for aQuantive. However, at a little over a month since it announced the finalization of the $6 billion advertising deal, Microsoft is already displaying a parade of new online advertising partners. The company has boasted that no less than 20 publishers were converted to its new portfolio of online services, after it announced the
acquisition of aQuantive.
Microsoft bet $6 billion on the aQuantive gambit trying to catch up with Google on the online advertising market, and to offer an alternative poll to the Google-DoubleClick partnership. Yet according to the Redmond company, the aQuantive's Atlas Publisher Suite was nothing more than a winning horse, with new customers knocking down its doors.
"We are extremely pleased with how quickly the market has embraced Atlas as part of Microsoft and the value provided by the Atlas Publisher Suite," said Karl Siebrecht, president of Atlas, a division of the Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group at Microsoft. "Publishers are voting with their dollars. They are choosing Atlas because it can create quantifiable value, more control and increasingly effective ways for them to monetize their ad inventory."
Microsoft was not shy about "advertising" some of its new online partners. SmartBrief, Reunion.com and Entrepreneur.com are among the new Atlas customers, now under the umbrella of Advertiser and Publisher Solutions (APS) Group formed in order to swallow aQuantive. One client that Microsoft placed focus on is IAC, top Web premium publisher, including Internet properties such as CollegeHumor, Vimeo and 23/6.
"Atlas has given us exceptional ease of integration and various new monetization avenues, and that's why we put our trust in Atlas over other providers," said Chris McNeilly, vice president of technology at SmartBrief. "In comparison to other solutions in the marketplace today, we feel the Atlas Publisher Suite is a better value, period."
