Friday, May 25, 2007

Party like it's 1999


Google buys DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.

Yahoo buys Right Media for $725 million.

WPP buys 24/7 Media for $650 million.

Microsoft buys aQuantive for $6 billion.

Does this change the game? Don't know. What I believe is that some of these mergers will have minimal impact and might create major inefficiencies.
All these companies will have major struggles at hand to create efficiencies and synergies.

How does a holding company like WPP make 24/7 a better company? I think they will just get a nice, fat check each quarter.

Microsoft buying aQuantive - If you're an Apple user at Razorfish or Atlas, better watch out. Get used to Vista. Microsoft is way behind in search, their advertising network is mediocre at best and the only thing they can do with aQuantive is force them to change the technical architecture.

The one interesting acquisition is Google and DoubleClick. Google will apply their engineering machine and combine their tools with DoubleClick to make something really interesting. And, possibly, scary. Trafficking, tracking, optimization at a whole new level.

Does anyone remember the Daimler/Chrysler merger? Organic synergies always beat purchased synergies.

No comments: