Microsoft to buy Rapt for ad management tools

by Peter Sayer

March 14, 2008 —

Microsoft hasn't yet snagged
Yahoo, but it plans to acquire another company it hopes will boost its online
advertising yields: Rapt,
of San Francisco.

Rapt sells advertising yield management tools for online media companies. The
tools are designed to predict demand for advertising and optimize the price
and placement of ads, improving revenue.

Microsoft plans to incorporate Rapt's tools and consultancy business into its
Atlas Publisher Suite. That will allow it to offer publishers an integrated
service to manage advertising sales, it said.

Microsoft obtained Atlas as part of its acquisition
of aQuantive for US$6 billion last May. It did not say how much it will
pay for Rapt.

Rapt already counts a number of online services among its customers, including
Microsoft, Expedia, Dow Jones and The New York Times, according to Microsoft.
One Rapt customer Microsoft forgot to mention is Yahoo, which has used Rapt's
Price Director software in the U.S. since 2004, and worldwide from October 2005,
according to Rapt.

Yahoo executives reportedly met with Microsoft representatives Monday to explore
Microsoft's unsolicited $44.6 billion bid for the company. If that deal goes
ahead, the companies' work with Rapt may help them integrate systems, but if
it fails, Microsoft's control of Rapt's yield-improvement technology could hurt
the profitability of Yahoo's online advertising model.

Rapt was exploring one other partnership that Microsoft might put a stop to:
In December, Rapt said it was in talks with DoubleClick, now
part of Google, about a possible integration of their advertising management
systems.

IDG News Service