Microsoft Adds Ad Tech Firm Rapt To Stable
- by Mark Walsh @markfwal, March 17, 2008
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Rapt's "yield management" software helps publishers adjust pricing and inventory for display advertising based on changes in demand.
Yield management systems have been used historically by the travel industry, especially airlines, to optimize revenue for their inventory--pricing and re-pricing things like airline seats and hotel-room vacancies.
Microsoft would incorporate Rapt's software and services into its Atlas Publishers Suite, part of the company's Advertiser and Publisher Solution Group encompassing Atlas, adCenter, DRIVEpm, Massive Inc. and ScreenTonic.
The move signals Microsoft's ongoing push into digital advertising, highlighted most dramatically through its $6 billion purchase of aQuantive last year. Most recently, Microsoft snapped up Israeli startup YaData, whose technology is designed to help advertisers find original customer segments online.
The acquisition "will allow Microsoft to provide its customers with integrated asset and inventory management, forecasting and sales management, and ad delivery and operations," said Scott Howe, a general manager in Microsoft's Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group. He added that the merger would "redefine the 'table stakes' for what media publishers in today's market need to effectively monetize their advertising inventory."
Microsoft has already had ample opportunity to test-drive Rapt's services as a client for the last four years. Howe said the company's software had helped "drive significant improvements in advertising yield" on MSN.
Other Rapt clients include CNET Networks, Dow Jones & Company, Fox Interactive Media and MTV Networks.
In addition to its publisher tools, the company also recently launched Rapt Information Services, a research offering for advertisers and agencies. Last month, Publicis Groupe Media said it would adopt the Rapt service to make more informed media purchases and plans.
The technology gives Publicis and other agencies a dashboard-like tool to look across the inventory and pricing strategies of various media sellers they're negotiating with.
Under the deal, expected to close in the next month, San Francisco-based Rapt would remain in California as a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. Rapt will also be maintained as a separate brand with Microsoft, at least initially.
Microsoft's latest ad technology deal follows on the heels of Google formally closing its $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick, underscoring the search giant's own ambitious push into display advertising.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that executives of Yahoo and Microsoft had met last week to discuss Microsoft's proposed takeover of the Web portal. Yahoo's board in February rejected Microsoft's bid, then valued at $44.6 billion. A decline in Microsoft's shares has since reduced the offer to about $42 billion.
