14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is now ready to slap Google with no less than $6 billion worth of advertising pain. The Redmond company initially announced the proposed acquisition of aQuantive, an international digital marketing company, and its addition to Microsoft's Internet-wide advertising platform on May 18. Microsoft agreed then to pay no less than $66.50 per share in an all-cash transaction. The final price tag that the Redmond company had to pay is approximately $6 billion. But buying aQuantive was the only way Microsoft could react to Google's own $3.1 billion cash acquisition of DoubleClick, announced in April.
At the beginning of July, the Microsoft and aQuantive acquisition was given the green light from regulation authorities, as the antitrust waiting period imposed for the proposed acquisition expired. With the issues inherent to a potential monopoly scenario out of the way, Microsoft had only one more obstacle, aQuantive's shareholders. But they proved to be no impediment at all, as the aQuantive shareholders accounting for in excess of 58 million shares of company stock out of the total 80 million shares outstanding, agreed to the merger.
Now, the biggest acquisition in Microsoft's history is expected to finalize in a matter of days, after the shareholders vote ended with "I hereby declare that the merger proposal has been approved," from aQuantive Chief Executive Brian McAndrews as cited by SeattlePI. aQuantive will become an integer part of Microsoft's Online Services Business, but will continue to operate from its own Seattle headquarters. The next step following the acquisition involves integrating aQuantive in Microsoft's existing advertising platform.
Google revealed that its purchase of DoubleClick, as well as Microsoft's deal with aQuantive "signal a new phase in online advertising, in which barriers between technology providers and advertising agencies are beginning to fall. These market dynamics will ultimately benefit consumers who will see more relevant and useful ads, and provide advertisers and publishers with more choices. And these are exactly the kind of competitive and innovation-driven market conditions that policy makers should be encouraging in our economy," commented Pablo Chavez, Google's Washington policy counsel.
McAndrews seems to see eye to eye with Google on this matter. "We're in the first or second inning of a long game here. There's no monopoly on innovation. I don't think you're going to see two or three big players and then game over. There will continue to be a broad range of companies," he stated.