PHOENIX -- An acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft would serve to make online advertising more -- not less -- competitive, according to Brian McAndrews, until recently the CEO of aQuantive and now senior
vice-president of Microsoft's advertiser and publisher solutions group. McAndrews offered this argument Monday to an overflow audience of Internet advertisers and publishers at the Interactive
Advertising Bureau's Ecosystem 2.0 conference in Phoenix.
Asked by Abbey Klaassen, the digital editor for Ad Age, what advantage a two-company "duopoly" would offer independent
agencies and publishers, McAndrews answered with counter-spin, asserting "it's better than a monopoly," casting Microsoft and Yahoo as David against Google's Goliath, adding, "two is all you need."
McAndrews made his remarks not long after Tolman Geffs, a managing director with Jordan Edmiston, hinted he thinks the takeover has a good chance of success.
Earlier in the day Yahoo founder and
CEO Jerry Yang addressed the same topic, repeating earlier statements from the company that Yahoo carefully considered Microsoft's $44.6 billion offer but the board felt it "seriously undervalued"
Yahoo.
--Erik Sass
