Instant Gratification: Microsoft Buys aQuantive

Always nice to make a good call, and Jason Jones made a great one yesterday--that aQuantive would be one of the next digital advertising companies to go in the panicked land-grab of the web elephants.  Even Jason probably didn't imagine that he'd be so right so soon, but we're proud of him.

Sick of forever being outbid and then having to mumble about "expensive" amid the Google-Yahoo celebrations, Microsoft made a preemptive offer on this one.  At 2% of Microsoft's market value, the acquisition is still a tuck-in, but it's the biggest one in Microsoft's history.  aQuantive won't solve all of Microsoft's web problems, but it will solve some of them.  Most importantly, it will mean that Microsoft's web business must--at least temporarily--be taken seriously again.