They'll still be chasing Google; Microsoft's $44.6B bid for Yahoo still won't net the Butterfly ad-market leadership.(News)

Advertising Age, February, 2008 by Klaassen, Abbey

Byline: ABBEY KLAASSEN

it's the biggest acquisition Microsoft has ever attempted and the biggest ever to hit the online ad business. But what's most surprising about the software giant's bid late last week for Yahoo is how little the $44.6 billion merger would change internet advertising-at least in the near term.

The deal certainly helps Microsoft close the ever-widening share gap in the all-important but fast-growing search market; shore up its display business at a time when the big money advertisers are still hooked on scale; and create all sorts of back-end efficiencies in the form of engineering and infrastructure investment.

Perversely, given that it would unite the Nos. 2 and 3 players in the market, a merger would at least offer...

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