CEO: Microsoft-Yahoo Will Bring Competition to Media Business

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Tuesday that his company’s attempt to acquire Yahoo was an effort to bring greater competition to the media business and the advertising industry. “We are trying to give good competition to the market leader in that category,” Ballmer said about Google, his voice rising to a pitch as he addressed a question about changes in the market for online advertising. “What about this Yahoo thing?” Ballmer asked rhetorically, referring to Microsoft’s continued quest for an alliance or acquisition of Web portal Yahoo. “The fundamental driver [is that] we are aiming to accelerate our move to get scale in online advertising. We think that this will be an important part of how the media business shakes out,” Ballmer said. Speaking at the annual gala dinner of the electronics association AeA, Ballmer framed the Redmond, Wash.-based software company’s strategic moves vis-a-vis Google — which opposes a Microsoft-Yahoo combination — as a task to which ingenious software should be applied.
http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=11