http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6670227.stmMicrosoft has committed to buying the ad firm Aquantive for $6bn. That's 6,000,000,000 dollars! An absolutely ridiculous amount of money. Most suspect, of course, that they're doing this to compete with Google, who just purchased Double Click.
I find it funny that MS and Google both bid for Double Click, and Google ended up winning for $3.1bn. Then Microsoft cried foul, complaining that this would give Google an unfair advantage (and perhaps they're right), then went and spent $6bn on the same thing.
That leads to the question: was Microsoft willing to pay more for a less-known company in an attempt to beat Google at their own game, or was Aquantive actually a better fit and worth the extra money? I'm sure not qualified to answer, but I'm curious about the motives here.
In any case, I really, really don't like the idea of an OS company teaming up with an Ad company. That's gotta be "trouble brewing" if I've ever seen it!