AdExchanger.com

OpenX Update: On Microsoft

Tim Cadogan, CEO of OpenX, spoke with AdExchanger.com about the OpenX/Microsoft deal announced last week.

AdExchanger.com: How will revenue be driven to OpenX from the deal announced today with Microsoft? Does OpenX get a share of PubCenter revenue from OpenX pubs, for example?

TC: We're not breaking out financial specifics, but in general terms OpenX expects to gain paying customer for our Enterprise ad serving product which will obviously generate revenue for OpenX.

Will OpenX ad serving technology be used on MSN properties? Curious about the large publishers mentioned as an opportunity for OpenX in the release.

The partnership is focused on third-party publisher ad serving so will not include MSN properties.

Considering OpenX open source roots, it is ironic that OpenX is making a deal with Microsoft - known in the past for a walled-garden or proprietary strategy for software. What does this mean about the way both companies are evolving today?

We have certainly found Microsoft very open to creative partnering opportunities. In their public statements they have been clear they are increasingly approaching the space with an "ecosystem mindset" which means sometimes working with third parties to solve customer needs. This partnership is obviously a great illustration of that. I have a feeling Microsoft might start to cause people to reevaluate some of their assumptions about them.

From the OpenX side, openness has clearly been fundamental to our approach since our founding. When we evaluated this partnership we thought, as we always do, about our core company goals. Those goals are very clear; first, to make advertising technology ubiquitously available to help businesses grow online and second, to help connect those businesses to revenue sources that help them make more money. We felt this partnership really helps us make progress against those twin goals.

First, it will help us enable more online businesses to grow by exposing our advertising technology to more potential customers via the referral arrangement with Microsoft. Second, the content ads component of the partnership enables us to make another revenue option easily accessible to OpenX publishers while maintaining comprehensive publisher choice and control. As such, the partnership made terrific sense for us and our publisher community.

By John Ebbert

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