Ten years ago, if a Martian from the future visited me at the offices of Wired, and told me that Microsoft would be announcing this, I’d have run him out of the building. No, wait, I would have interviewed him and put him on the cover, come to think of it.
Sure, not surprising to us at the moment, but really, think about what Microsoft was back in the 90s, and what this means now. From the LiveSide post:
At Advertising Week 2006 in New York, Microsoft is set to unveil a new unified global advertising initiative. Under Digital Advertising Solutions, advertisers will be able to more easily reach customers by packaging Microsoft’s products, including Xbox, MSN, Windows Live, Office, Windows Mobile, and Microsoft TV under one advertising solution….Clearly Microsoft is not only targeting Google and Yahoo with this advertisement push, but also TV and print media as well.
Recall the days when Microsoft was a software company? Recall that Wired cover when we claimed they were, in fact, a media company? Ah, good times.