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Six billion dollars for aQuantive puts Microsoft into the mix with Google, Yahoo, and newly-minted online advertising power WPP to battle over third party ad serving. "When the Lo/Rez machine decides to throw money at a problem, money will be thrown. Usually in the wrong direction." -- Arleigh McCrae has some misgivings about her organization's free-spending ways in William Gibson's Idoru.

Microsoft will spend $6 billion dollars for aQuantive, which includes Avenue A/Razorfish and a couple of other notable online ad-related businesses. Atlas and DRIVEpm are part of the deal, as noted by Jason Lee Miller earlier.

So the third party ad industry looks like this: DoubleClick goes to Google, reportedly for money equal to a Microsoft offer, for $3.1 billion. Yahoo scoops up what it doesn't already own of Right Media for $680 million. WPP spends $649 million on 24/7 Real Media to give Martin Sorrell another piece for his marketing empire.

Chump change. Amateurs. When it comes to spending money, Microsoft doesn't throw a block party. It razes the block, plows up the land, dumps salt on ever square inch, and vaporizes it from orbit.

The $6 billion cash (CASH!) Microsoft will spend to pick up aQuantive for about $66.50 per share blows away the other three deals cited.

There is one point on which Microsoft feels its buy is different than the Google/DoubleClick deal, which Microsoft thinks could violate antitrust regulations. TechCrunch picked up on this exchange between Microsoft and Bear Stearns during a conference call about aQuantive:

Bear Stearns question: does this affect MS’s opinion on Google/doubleclick transaction. MS: no, not at all. Says this will promote competition and Google/doubleclick will hurt competition. Microsoft is in none of the businesses that aQuantive is in, whereas Google was already in direct competition with doubleclick and will give Google 80% market share in those markets.

After all is said and done, it's a six billion dollar deal. "That’s more than 10 times its revenue last year, and, yipes, close to 50 times its cash flow," Kara Swisher said of aQuantive on All Things D.