In an effort to take on Google five years ago, Microsoft bought the online advertising specialist aQuantive, not knowing that advertising revenues were about to fall off a cliff and has taken a charge of US$ 6.2 billion on this purchase. This effectively allocates a zero value to this asset.

The software giant can take hits of this stature in it's stride though it will wipe out the profits for what would be their fourth quarter, forecast at around US$ 5 billion.

Microsoft are still very much in the online advertising world with MSN and their Bing search engine but see lower future revenue coming in from these sources