MICROSOFT to acquire SCREENTONIC

Thomas Husson | May 04, 2007, 04:04 AM

As I stated earlier this year, the mobile advertising market is still extremely nascent and fragmented. There are tremendous opportunities for growth because the market value is still close to nothing in absolute numbers.

The fact that giant Microsoft decides to acquire Screentonic, an innovative French start-up (after search player MotionBridge last year) is a clear signal to the market that there is a strong potential and that the big Internet guys will shape the market by acquiring those who have the know-how and understand the specificities of the mobile platform (and of the fragmented device market). I met Marc-Henri Magdelenat several times and it had always been clear that such a move would happen. Well done ! Screentonic guys did a good job at raising their company profile even if other players deliver the same kind of services. It will definitely help this small local player in its international expansion phase.

But again, despite the hype and the rationale for mobile advertising, we are not there yet. Remember it took roughly 10 years for Internet to represent around 5 percent of the advertising cake in Europe.