WebProNews

It is now, in a literal sense, a done deal: Microsoft has closed its $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive.  And that money isn’t intended to make people sit on their hands; some big changes are going to take place within the Redmond-based giant.

The chief one is the creation of “the Advertiser and Publisher Solutions (APS) Group.”  According to a press release, “This new business group will be responsible for building Microsoft’s monetization engine to serve the advertiser and publisher community,” and will be in charge of “Atlas, DRIVEpm, MSNDR and Microsoft AdCenter, along with emerging media types such as in-game and mobile ads, and the agency arm Avenue A | Razorfish.”

Also, “The APS group will be run by Brian McAndrews, CEO of aQuantive, who will report directly to Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft’s Platforms & Services Division.”  That qualifies as a major modification to the chain of command.

Not a lot of other specifics were shared; guess Microsoft isn’t ready to alert Google and Yahoo of its plan to beat them in the online ad industry.  One item of note is that most of aQuantive’s employees will continue to work within their Seattle offices, so Microsoft has achieved a slight physical expansion.

$6 billion would have bought quite a few acres of land, however.  Look for more to come from this deal than an additional address.