When DCLK got bought by Google, and then aQuantive got bought out by Microsoft, I said independent of what you or I say about the prices paid ($3.1B and $6B respectively), aQuantive was definitely worth twice as much as Doubleclick.
Of course, like it or not, this might have everything to do with IAC’s Ask.com being a competitor of Google, now parent of Doubleclick. I had actually warned Google that it risked a publisher exodus… and now shockingly my prophecy there turns true. Hmm. For an overall rundown of the GOOG/DCLK deal click here.
Today, we see one more manifestation and argument supporting my claims - IAC drops DLCK for AQNT:
IAC owns Ask, Excite, Expedia, Hotwire, iWon, Live Daily, Match Ticketmaster, TicketWeb, Match.com, Citysearch and Evite. It characterizes its audience as “busy mothers, trendy singles, established professionals, tech-savvy consumers and affluent couples.”
The deal is a big win for Atlas and for Microsoft, which anticipates completing its acquisition of aQuantive by the end of the year.
“The relationship with IAC is a fairly comprehensive partnership that is, in essence, designed to take advantage of the Atlas Ad Manager technology for IAC publisher sites and manage the full spectrum of their business online in terms of inventory forecasting, analytics, targeting, etc.,” said Scott Ferris, Atlas’s senior vice president and general manager of the publisher and emerging media divisions. “It’s designed to encompass all of the IAC publisher and media property over time.”
It’s also a blow to DoubleClick and its likely future parent Google, though Google’s move to buy DoubleClick was not a factor in IAC’s decision. An IAC spokesperson said the deal has been in the works for a long time, pre-dating the merger agreement between Google and DoubleClick.
Sure, of course it is. I’d love for IAC to come out and say:
“Well, you saw how our search unit, Ask.com lost more share to Google, right? Well, it would just be stupid to keep our business in display with Google too, where pound for pound, at least for now, we’re stronger than Google… so we’re going with the lesser of two enemies, MSFT. Besides, let’s face it, one day, we’ll sell Ask.com to MSFT and get out of search. You do know Barry Diller’s modus operandi, right?”
Jokes aside, this is a smart tactical and strategic move for IAC.
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