There’s nothing like a good giant fight, and two giants are reportedly going at it over an advertising deal and stake in Facebook. Though Google has been known to win its giant fights with Microsoft, one source says Microsoft might overbid just to keep the rocketing social network away from Google.
The New York Post appears to be the first to quote some anonymous sources saying that both Microsoft and Google are in the final stages of negotiation, and that one of them will walk away with an advertising deal as well as a 5-10 percent stake in the company, valued between $750 million and $1.5 billion.
An outcome is expected within the next 24-48 hours, with a follow-up announcement from Facebook regarding a new advertising platform expected on November 6.
This isn’t the first time Microsoft and Google have gone up against each other. So far Microsoft is about 0 for 4, give or take a corporate battle. As soon as Google won MySpace’s heart for an advertising deal, Microsoft turned around and struck a deal with Facebook immediately.
(Although, Google did flub on that one, having the option to purchase MySpace for half of what News Corp. paid and instead ended up serving up advertising for 3 times the price.)
Google beat out Microsoft for a stake in AOL; beat out MSN and Live for domination of the search market; and Microsoft lost both a senior search expert (Kai Fu Lee) and a court battle over non-compete clauses.
So the running thought here is that Facebook might favor Google, but Microsoft has a bigger wallet and may not be outbid this time. Guess we’ll find out by Friday.
