Kara Swisher in News on December 27, 2011 at 4:12 am PT
Let’s throw a few more names on the fire!
Kara Swisher in Media on December 20, 2011 at 4:40 pm PT
Wanted, one magical exec to work miracles against increasingly troublesome dragons. Ability to sparkle a plus.
Peter Kafka in Media on May 3, 2010 at 1:00 pm PT
Bruce Jaffe, last seen cutting deals for Microsoft, has a new gig: He’ll be CFO at Glam Media. Next up for the Web publisher: IPO?
Kara Swisher in News on September 12, 2009 at 1:04 pm PT
Apparently, not everyone leaves Yahoo to join Microsoft.
On Friday, sources said, it was announced internally at Microsoft that Karl Siebrecht, the former president of Atlas at aQuantive, is joining AdReady at the end of the month as president and COO.
AdReady, based in Seattle, bills itself as an “advertising technology company focused on making online display advertising accessible and effective for advertisers of all sizes.”
Peter Kafka in Media on August 9, 2009 at 7:40 pm PT
Give this to Steve Ballmer: After getting roundly hammered in the past few years for either missing out on deals (see: AOL/Google) or paying too much for the ones he did land (see: Facebook at $15 billion), he seems to be on a roll.
Last week, Microsoft was roundly praised for the way it structured its Yahoo deal. And today, the company seems to have struck a smart pact with Publicis, which will pay $530 million for Redmond’s Razorfish digital ad agency, which Ballmer never wanted anyway. Just as important: The French ad giant will agree to buy a certain amount of search and display inventory from Microsoft over the next five years.
Peter Kafka in Media on June 28, 2009 at 8:16 pm PT
Microsoft acquired digital ad agency Razorfish two years ago as part of its $6 billion purchase of parent company aQuantive. The industry has been waiting for Redmond to part ways with the ad shop since then. Now it’s formally on the block: Microsoft has reportedly hired Morgan Stanley to broker a deal.
John Paczkowski in News on May 11, 2009 at 11:58 am PT
With $25 billion in its coffers, Microsoft isn’t exactly hurting for cash. So why is the company planning a bond offering that could raise billions in additional capital? Microsoft will say only that the sale of the notes will be used for “general corporate purposes.” Those include working capital and share buybacks. They also include acquisitions.
Kara Swisher in News on December 13, 2008 at 2:00 am PT
With so many more ex-Yahoos out there now, BoomTown put out feelers to a range of them to ask whom they would like to run the company they no longer work for. After all, who better than to pick a new CEO than an ex? The response was swift and varied wildly, depending on which way the ex-Yahoo felt the company should go, from a basic turnaround expert to–
drum roll, please–his digital Holiness, Steve Jobs of Apple. No kidding.
Kara Swisher in News on December 4, 2008 at 8:18 pm PT
BoomTown strives to bring readers the very best in internal memo decoding, and this one is just too good to pass up.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent a short memo to employees this afternoon about finally hiring someone to head the software giant’s lackluster digital efforts.
That someone is former Yahoo tech star Qi Lu. He will become president of the Online Services Group at Microsoft, right after the new year.
Thus, let us try to read between the lines.
Kara Swisher in News on December 4, 2008 at 1:36 pm PT
Microsoft moved up its announcement of former Yahoo tech star Qi Lu as its digital head.
BoomTown reported on the selection this morning.
As part of the changes, Microsoft digital ad head Brian McAndrews, who had also wanted the job, is leaving.
Here’s the full release.
