Microsoft has sold Atlas to Facebook.

[disolitude]

darkknightkryta said:

kowenicki said:

darkknightkryta said:

disolitude said:

darkknightkryta said:
What's Atlas and why is it worth 6.3 billion dollars?

It's an ad server and it isn't worth 6 billion dollars. Atlas was worth 500 million tops when it was bought as part of aQuantive bundle.

All those lovely banners you see on this site and all other are served by ad servers which count impressions clicks, target ads to specific demographics and collect data. Glorious data!!!

Then why did it cost Microsoft 6 billion dollars? 

It didn't. It was part of a much bigger deal that cost 6bn

I'm still confused here.  So they bought the parent company then?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AQuantive

It was basically 3 companies. they went together very well. An agency/creative shop/media buying company, an ad server, and an optimization and anlytics company.

Had microsoft invested in them they may have gotten their 6 billion dollars worth, but sadly microsoft didnt really do anything worthwhile except sold them off one by one at a much lower price.