Ballmer writes $486 million
cheque
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.