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Microsoft Antes Up for Facebook

Microsoft apparently beat out Google yesterday and won a piece of social networking company Facebook. Microsoft agreed to pay $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook. That would put Facebook's total value at about $15 billion. At this level of investment, each of Facebook's 50 million users is worth $306.12 to Microsoft.

Microsoft's investment guarantees the software company's exclusive right to sell Facebook's international advertising. Clearly, Microsoft sees online advertising as its next growth business.

Getting a piece of the exploding interest in social networking seems to be the biggest prize of the last year, and Microsoft has won the latest battle. Is Facebook in particular or social networking in general a worthy partner for a software company like Microsoft? Is the company worth $15 billion? Send me your thoughts to [email protected].

Posted by Peter Varhol on October 25, 2007


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