Microsoft Miva Marriage?

If you thought you had a bad 2005, check out this story in BusinessWeek about the trials and tribulations of ad network Miva.

The stock lost 72 percent of its value, the CFO quit among suspect financials, and the company had to pay $8 million to settle a patent dispute. Miva, the network formerly known as FindWhat could be ripe for the picking, but is Microsoft really in the market for an ad network?

On the plus side, buying a veteran ad network would give MS lots of experienced brainpower and industry connections to help the company understand the online ad world and provide an instant cache of external customers for AdCenter. On the other hand, Microsoft is probably more interested in developing the ad serving technology and leveraging its audience than managing the day-to-day goings-on of an ad network.

Microsoft will likely buy its way to a larger market at some point, but now is probably too early as the company tends to do so as a last result, not when it is beginning in an area.