June 29th, 2009

Just another Microsoft Monday: Quick picks

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 4:50 am

Categories: Advertising, Corporate strategy

Tags: Advertisement, Microsoft Corp., Mary Jo Foley

Here are a few Microsoft-related items that caught my bleary eye this morning, June 29.

* Microsoft may sell off Razorfish, the ad agency that it acquired when it bought aQuantive two years ago. Fearing head-to-head competition with Redmond, a number of Microsoft’s advertising partners have been none too keen that the Softies owned an ad agency and have advocated for Microsoft to sell off Razorfish. The Financial Times is reporting that Microsoft has hired Morgan Stanley to find a potential buyer, and that Publicis — the marketing company with which Microsoft struck a deal last week for new digital ad formats, is one potential bidder. Microsoft isn’t commenting on the FT story.

* Microsoft is folding its Channels 8 and 10 into Channel 9. Channel 8 was Microsoft’s education/student-focused site and 10 its marketing site. Channel 9, the first of Microsoft’s video-centric portals, is aimed largely at developers. The Coding4Fun site content is being moved to Channel 9, as well. (If you want  the full video where the team explains the changes, it’s on Channel 9.) No one (publicly, at least) is attributing these moves to Microsoft belt-tightening, but it’s hard to imagine that budget pressures aren’t at least part of the reason for the rejiggering.

* Just when you thought finding buildings on Microsoft’s growing number of campuses couldn’t get any harder, the company is renaming a number of buildings on its Lakeside campus. Building 116 is now “Studio G”; 117 is “Studio H”; 118 is “Studio F”; and 119 is “Studio E.” The reasoning, according to one Microsoft blogger: The company wants the new names to match those of the adjacent Studios West part of campus.