SEATTLE — In closing a $6 billion buyout of digital marketing company aQuantive on Monday, Microsoft is taking a first step in its quest to leapfrog Yahoo and challenge Google in the online advertising business.
“Our goal is to be No. 1 or No. 2,” Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft Corp.’s platforms and services division, said in an interview.
It’s an ambitious plan, given that the software maker lags far behind Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. in search traffic and advertising revenue.
Microsoft has said disruptive changes in the software industry — a shift away from desktop programs and toward applications delivered over the Internet — will touch every one of the company’s products, in ways yet to be determined.
With aQuantive Inc., Microsoft believes it has cleared away some worries about how to stay profitable during the shift. Johnson said units in the two companies are being combined and reorganized to provide an advertising platform to support new Web-based services.
A new advertising and publishing solutions group is being formed, under the plan Johnson and aQuantive Chief Executive Brian McAndrews outlined last week with the Associated Press.
The group, to be led by McAndrews, includes aQuantive’s ad-serving technologies and tools for tracking the success of online ad campaigns, and DrivePM, which extends Microsoft’s ability to sell Web ads to aQuantive’s broad network of top sites.
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