Microsoft announced today that it will acquire aQuantive for $6 billion in an all cash deal. aQuantive is a digital marketing company

The deal comes at a time when major acquisitions are going in the advertising industry, Recently Yahoo said that it will acquire Right Media, Google is acquiring DoubleClick and yesterday WPP announced to acquire 24/7 Real Media. It is important for Microsoft to have these type of deals if it wants to be in the online advertising business race.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says “Today’s announcement represents the next step in the evolution of our ad network from our initial investment in MSN, to the broader Microsoft network including Xbox Live, Windows Live and Office Live, and now to the full capacity of the Internet.

aQuantive is a company based in Seattle with 2600 employees.