I read the press release when news broke about the aQuantive acquisition last Friday. Like many press releases, if left a few questions in my mind. Fortunately there were some talking points in my inbox this morning which help clarify the objectives of the acquisition;

The deal is an extension of Microsoft’s big bet on the online advertising space.  With a total value of over $500 billion, $40 billion of which is online, there is tremendous opportunity to not only drive future growth for the company, but also to provide this industry with tools and services that will help advertisers generate the highest possible return on their ad investments and will help publishers maximize their revenue.

Our merger with aQuantive will enable the new team to strengthen our relationships with advertisers, agencies and publishers by enhancing our current advertising platform with complementary technologies.  For the first time, we’ll be offering display advertising solutions for all ad agencies and publishers on any websites; providing a choice while, growing the addressable market for Microsoft products and services. 

With these new assets, we also increase our capabilities to build and support next generation advertising solutions and platforms such as cross media planning, video-on-demand and IPTV.

Interesting stuff.

Kevin