Microsoft seems to be of the opinion - at least for public consumption anyway - that it has pretty much everything it needs. This Wednesday the company's chief advertising boffin Yusuf Mehdi, when asked if Yahoo had any desirable assets, told a Goldman Sachs crowd "I think we have all the pieces." He suggested Microsoft will eventually best Google in search results, which, he said, is key.

The market took the suggestion that Microsoft won't buy Yahoo poorly.

The aQuantive acquisition is supposed to give Microsoft a shot at what it says is a $40 billion brass ring that's expected to grow at the rate of 20% a year between now and 2010. The whole US ad market is worth about $300 billion. aQuantive, which delivers the display ads that lead to third-party web sites, earned $54 million last year on sales of $442.2 million, up 43%. (Somebody figured it will take Microsoft 15-30 year to recoup its $6 billion outlay.) Google makes its money on paid search.

Microsoft says the operation will give it a "world-class, Internet-wide advertising platform," stronger relationships with advertisers, agencies and publishers and a way to next-generation advertising solutions and environments like cross-media planning, video-on-demand and IPTV. Microsoft, which, remember, is a software company, wants to fashion a scalable end-to-end solution shot through with online applications and services.