Windows 7 Code/ Microsoft and DoubleClick What if

The pundits have spoken: Chalk up yet another win for Google and another loss for Microsoft inside the bidding war for display-ad vendor DoubleClick. Lots of business watchers think Google was wiling to pay out a whopping $3.1 billion as much due to its want to maintain DoubleClick from Microsoft's hands as for DoubleClick's customer and partner lists. And if you thought Microsoft was doomed before within the online advertising market, the Redmondians are really toast now thanks to the DoubleClick reduction,Windows 7 Code/, some sages are claiming. But what if Microsoft bluffed? What if the Microsoft didn't really want DoubleClick and simply wanted to bid up the price that Google had to pay out to make its latest acquisition? I know I might sound like a Microsoft apologist trying to explain the DoubleClick reduction. But consider this through: If you look at Microsoft's spending patterns, as of late, the company is leaning extra toward doing less-than-$1-billion-sized acquisitions. Inside the increasingly rare cases when Microsoft does shell out big bucks (like close to $800 million for TellMe), it's simply because it envisions the target as a technology acquisition,Office 2010 Serial, not an advertising/customer acquisition. Did Microsoft view TellMe as a great deal more of a mobile-search purchase or a voice-technology buy? I'd bet the latter…. As Don Dodge, director of enterprise development with Microsoft's Emerging Home business Team,Windows 7 Key, blogged: "DoubleClick was a publicly traded company two years ago and valued at less than $1 billion. Anyone could have acquired DoubleClick,Microsoft Office Pro Plus 2007, but a private equity firm took them private less than two years ago for $1.one billion. They later sold off two divisions for $525 million. Yesterday Google paid $3.1 billion for what remained of DoubleClick. Why did Google wait two years and pay billions significantly more?" Sure, Dodge's reasoning could be nothing further than sour grapes… "Microsoft never really wanted 'em anyway,microsoft Office 2010 License!" What do you think? Was DoubleClick a Microsoft bluff or a muff?