Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer Tuesday evening didn't say a whole lot about his company's pursuit of Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), but he did reemphasize the critical role online advertising played in the attempted takeover.
Ballmer, speaking at the AeA Technology for Government dinner in Washington Tuesday, said the "fundamental driver" behind the company's pursuit of the search giant was the need to "accelerate our moves to get scale in online advertising." In a speech geared toward the 700 or so government contractors, representatives and IT professionals in the audience, Ballmer more broadly laid out how far technology has come and where he sees it going. The online advertising market, he said, will likely get "turned on its head" in the next 10 years.
The speech was closed to press questions, but the latest reports have Microsoft and Yahoo! back in negotiations on a deal after Microsoft yanked its $44.6 billion bid in May, and the two are talking about some sort of combination short of an outright acquisition.
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