There has been a lot of buzz over the last couple of days about Microsoft's $6 Billion of AQuantive as it tries to capture a larger role in the web video market.  The frenzy is intense because this follows the high profile Google acquisitions of advertising firm DoubleClick  and other recent aquisitions in the same space by Yahoo! I would like to turn our attention to a less reported acquisition we just did recently in the mobile advertising space - which has not been widely reported.

Microsoft announced on May 3rd that it aquired ScreenTonic, a European  mobile advertising company based in Paris. ScreenTonic’s mobile solutions provide advertisers with a complete range of ad formats, from display to text, as well as ad management and reporting capabilities, while serving the needs of mobile operators and independent publishers equally. The company has built a technology platform called STAMP for managing and delivering ads on mobile phones.  STAMP allows mobile portals to display advertising content on their mobile pages or in their mobile applications, and consequently to generate new revenues. They are backed by 3i and I-Source Gestion. More details about this acquisition can be found here.