OpenX has long been angling for Google’s online ad dominance. And after a new multi-year deal with Microsoft, announced this morning, they’ll have an even bigger ally in the fight. The partnership has been in trials for over a year, but is now official.
Explains TechCrunch:
Under the agreement, Pasadena-based OpenX becomes a preferred partner to publishers for enterprise ad serving solutions and has agreed to promote Microsoft’s Content Ads monetization products and eventual future products to its own roster of web publisher customers.
OpenX said that publishers usings its recently launched OpenX Market and Ad Server products will be able to use MS’s Content Ads, and that the Redmond software giant will refer potential customers to OpenX.
OpenX Market and Ad Server compete with Google’s Ad Manager product. Display is obviously not Google’s bread and butter (though every little bit helps), and it is OpenX’s.
Interestingly, after last year’s acquisitions, OpenX’s advertising services compete not only with Google’s DoubleClick but also Microsoft’s aQuantive. Perhaps Microsoft doesn’t see them as quite enough of a threat to their advertising business—or perhaps they just want market share so badly that they’re willing to foster internal competition.
What do you think? Will OpenX and Microsoft be able to take on Google?
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