CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
March 14, 2008
Acquisitions
Microsoft Announces Acquisition of Rapt—R apt solutions will provide Microsoft with advanced technology and services for digital media publishers
Microsoft Corp. today announced plans to acquire Rapt Inc., the leading provider of advertising yield management solutions for digital media publishers. Rapt's technology, along with its information and advisory services offerings, will become key components of the Atlas Publisher Suite, part of Microsoft's Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group. With the inclusion of Rapt, the Atlas Publisher Suite allows Microsoft to provide its customers with integrated asset and inventory management, forecasting, yield and sales management, and ad delivery and operations.
"Online publishers have a complex array of needs, and they require more attentive and sophisticated partners to help them solve these challenges," said Brian McAndrews, senior vice president of the Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group at Microsoft. "With this acquisition, we are uniquely positioned to help publishers succeed on all fronts. Our end-to-end solution will include workflow tools, ad package and delivery, turnkey distribution, content partnerships, and yield management and optimization."
A key product that will emerge from the marriage of Rapt's planning capabilities and Atlas' campaign management capabilities is an integrated publisher sales workflow solution. This solution will improve upon the existing industry offerings for publishers' sales teams when used with Rapt's existing pricing analytics, inventory management and business intelligence products on top of Atlas' ad serving platform.
"The opportunity to join forces with Microsoft and to see our technology flourish inside a much larger platform was too compelling to pass up," said Tom Chavez, founder, president and CEO of Rapt. "We're confident that, with Microsoft, we can continually improve publisher results and aggressively grow our combined client base that already includes over half of the top 25 U.S. publishers."
About Microsoft Advertiser and Publisher Solutions
Microsoft Advertiser and Publisher Solutions (APS) provides world-class advertising platforms and tools for advertisers, agencies and publishers. Its mission is to make buying and selling media simpler, smarter and more cost-effective across media and devices in the Microsoft network of properties and beyond. The APS portfolio includes Microsoft adCenter, Atlas, DRIVEpm, Massive Inc. and ScreenTonic. APS businesses span search, display and emerging media including mobile, gaming, video on demand and IPTV. More information can be found at http://advertising.microsoft.com
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