Microsoft recently completed the US$6 billion acquisition of digital network aQuantive, by creating the APS group to manage Microsoft’s online advertising platforms.
This includes aQuantive, MSN and Microsoft AdCenter. In Asia-Pacific, aQuantive owns content-creators
e-Crusade, which has offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai, and Amnesia, which operates in Australia and Japan.
However, Jamie Leady, media relations manager for aQuantive, stressed that aQuantive will remain media neutral. “Microsoft and MSN will need to continue to earn business from Avenue A | Razorfish and e-Crusade, just as they always have.”
Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft’s Platforms and Services Division (PSD), which oversees APS, said, “The addition of aQuantive’s technologies and people to the Microsoft portfolio is a core, strategic investment and step forward in our plans to become one of the top two online advertising platforms in the industry.”
Microsoft currently falls a distant third to Yahoo and Google in online advertising .
