Posted on Saturday, March 31 2007 @ 18:06 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
A report from the Wall Street Journal
says Microsoft is planning to acquire online advertising firm DoubleClick.
DoubleClick, which is majority-owned by private equity firm Hellman and Friedman, is said to be exploring options and working closely with Morgan Stanley to secure a possible sale with Microsoft.
A $2bn price tag has been placed on DoubleClick by the private equity firm. DoubleClick, which was founded in 1996 and went private in 2005, has seen revenue of $150m in the last year.
But what's in it for Microsoft? Surely the company could find a cheaper way to build or buy some ad-serving software. And paying $2bn to replace Atlas GMT, Microsoft's current ad-serving software of choice, for an inhouse service looks somewhat eccentric.
