Mad Mike Magee’s Musings

THE VOLE’S sales team is in disarray after a senior executive threw in the towel yesterday, according to a report.

The Wall Street Journal (sub needed) said Joanne Bradford is the latest to leave its online advertising business, with the paper reporting the rest of the team is “devastated”.

If you were to disembowel a Vole and inspect the auguries, you would probably conclude that the prospect of coping with a Yahoo takeover is also not making the sales bunnies that happy.

Yesterday, the Vole nemesis, Google Two Shoes, announced a cunning plan to snaffle up even more business, called Ad Manager. This provides ad serving free. The Journal speculates that Google will eventually make the high price tag Double Click service free. ♦

IT SEEMS that the Bush administration has allowed Microsoft off its US antitrust hook, according to a report on Bloomberg. 

That emerged as a court transcript was released last week, revealing that any further antitrust action will be up to the 17 US states which were part of the original complaint. 

Microsoft may be in the clear as far as the Justice Department goes, but in Europe it faces further woe as the EC steps up its investigation into the Great Vole of Volesoft. 

The Bloomberg report is here. ♣