Microsoft supremeo Steve Ballmer has written a $486 million cheque to buy a Munich, Germany-based Web comparison shopping site and its parent company.

Ballmer had his sights on Greenfield Online which owns Ciao, a collection of European price-comparison, shopping and consumer reviews sites in seven countries and languages.

The big idea is that the company will boost Microsofts search presence in the EU. Ciao sites get more than 26 million unique visitors a month and has generated more than 5 million product reviews.

The deal will probably be sorted out by the end of the fourth quarter of 2008. Redmond has changed its policy on search over the last few months and his been improving its site to make searches that lead to shopping and travel.