Microsoft had to outbid a private equity fund, Quadrangle Group, to win this deal for Ciao's parent
company, Greenfield Online. In June, Greenfield entered what it described at the time as a definitive agreement to be acquired by Quadrangle for $426 million. Even though Greenfield ditched Quadrangle Group for Microsoft, don't feel too sorry for Quadrangle. Greenfield must pay the consortium a sweet $5 million fee to extricate itself from that agreement.
Microsoft will not keep one unit of the Greenfield Online operations -- its survey business. Ciao pays Internet users for taking surveys. Microsoft expects to sell that business to an unnamed buyer.
One interesting note, Yahoo too has acquired a European shopping comparison service, French company Kelkoo, which operates in ten European countries.
Comparison shopping services as destination sites, such as Shopping.com, were all the rage in the U.S. in the early 1990's when e-commerce first hit the scene. Shopping.com is still around, and operates in Europe, too. But most U.S. buyers tend to do their comparison shopping on eBay or their favorite search engine (one whose name starts with a "G" and rhymes with bugle). But with a single currency across Europe, shopping services in that part of the world make a lot of sense. Any chip Microsoft can get that game would serve it well.
Visit the Microsoft Subnet home page for more news, blogs, podcasts.
More blog post from the Microsoft Subnet posts:*SQL Server 2008 offers shamefully weak knowledge base
* Better privacy options in IE8 are good for the consumer, bad for online media companies
* MS SQL Server gains market share but open source threat grows
*5 ways cloud providers mess up
* 12 cool cross-platform tools for Windows, Macs and Linux
Subscribe to all Microsoft Subnet bloggers via Yahoo Pipes.
Sign up for the bi-weekly Microsoft newsletter. (Click on News/Microsoft News Alert.)
The Microsoft Subnet blog is the official blog of the Network World's Microsoft Subnet community, managed by editor Julie Bort. Microsoft Subnet is the independent voice of Microsoft customers and is your gateway to daily Microsoft news, blogs, opinion, books, prize giveaways and more. Visit the Microsoft Subnet index page daily, and while you are there, subscribe to the Microsoft newsletter. The newsletter includes news generated by the Microsoft Subnet community as well as other Microsoft news stories published by Network World.
(OS community)
(Microsoft RSS feed)
The opinions expressed in this Weblog are those of the writer and may not represent the opinions of Network World.
|
|
Post new comment