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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday June 30 2015, @12:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the you've-got-mail dept.

Hot on the heels of Microsoft handing over Bing imaging assets and employees to Uber, AOL has announced a partnership and deal that will see it take over sales and management of online advertisements on Microsoft Web properties:

The deal, which was announced on Monday (US time), will see AOL take over ads for such sites as MSN Homepage, Outlook.com, Skype, Xbox, and ads in apps. Markets affected include the US, UK, Canada, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain. "The arrangement will improve ad campaign efficiency and effectiveness through the delivery of scaled premium inventory across display, video and mobile, and enables marketers to deeply target premium audiences globally in key verticals, including autos, entertainment, health & fitness, lifestyle, money, news, sports, travel, and weather," AOL gushed in a canned statement.

The partnership also includes a new ten-year arrangement in which the AOL portal will switch its search engine to Bing from January 1, 2016, while AOL will sell and manage ads both on its own search site and on Microsoft's. "This deal is further evidence of the quality of Bing results and the performance of the Bing Ads marketplace," Microsoft corporate veep Rik van der Kooi said in a statement. "And we will continue our focus on delivering world class consumer services and content and look forward to partnering with AOL to market them."

Online ads have never been a massive business for Microsoft. Compared to its rival Google, which earns in excess of 90 per cent of its revenue from its various ad businesses, Microsoft tucks its online ad sales into its "Devices and Consumer Other" reporting segment, which itself accounts for only about a tenth of the software giant's revenue.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Tuesday June 30 2015, @11:39PM

    by stormwyrm (717) on Tuesday June 30 2015, @11:39PM (#203569) Journal
    They may not be losing revenue, but they are nosediving in terms of relevancy. Back in the mid-eighties to early 2000s Microsoft was a truly frightful juggernaut, so much so that back then when anyone would begin some sort of computer venture they would first ask: "What would Microsoft do in response to this?" and even the merest hint that Microsoft would get into something might be enough to dissuade the faint of heart from participation. They inherited this sort of power from IBM, which had the same kind of clout in the past. But today? Microsoft has just about the same level of relevance to the leading edge of the software industry as IBM or SAP do. These days it's Apple and Google people talk about that way, but even then these two companies put together don't inspire the same sort of terror that Microsoft did in its heyday. Microsoft will continue to remain profitable for decades probably, but they won't be the kind of mover and shaker that they once were, and probably never will be again. The nature of the company they've become sees to that. Not even if Bill Gates tries to make the same kind of triumphal return like Steve Jobs returning to Apple.
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by JeffPaetkau on Wednesday July 01 2015, @12:19AM

    by JeffPaetkau (1465) on Wednesday July 01 2015, @12:19AM (#203579)

    They may not be losing revenue, but they are nosediving in terms of relevancy

    Sure that is probably true. However, it is also true that it was bound to happen eventually anyway. Absolute domination of the industry just isn't a realistic bar. As long as they remain competitive despite loosing some relevance they are ahead of the game.