Yesterday, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Paris-based mobile advertising start up ScreenTonic for an undisclosed amount.

First things first, there’s no way I can explain better than David Rowe (in English) or that guy Julien (in French) who had suggested the deal to Microsoft Corp several months ago, why it makes a lot of business sense for Microsoft to have acquired Screentonic (you may also check the New York Times for facts related by an independent third party). I’m trying to analyze this deal from a slightly different view point: what kind of strategy has Microsoft undertaken vs. an everyday fiercer competition?

To make a long story short, when CISCO (US$ 3.2bn for WebEx) & Google (US$ 3.1bn for DoubleClick) spend zillions in external growth purchasing US-based companies, Microsoft chooses to acquire ScreenTonic, a Paris-born company with operations in London as well, which roughly speaking made US$ 7m (EUR 5m) in sales last year in the mobile advertising business. I’m not saying CISCO and Google are mistaking (actually, I can’t help admiring CISCO & Google for the excellence of their people & the quality of everything they do – and I share the same feelings for Microsoft and Apple): Microsoft’s strategy just differs. And it differs in a way that I find disruptive, for 3 reasons. 2 good reasons and 1 evil reason.

1) First (good reason): Microsoft acknowledges smart people drive innovation, no matter their geographical location

Microsoft, in acquiring ScreenTonic, isn’t acquiring a leading market share or preventing a competitor from buying ScreenTonic before they did (as Google might have done for DoubleClick vs. AOL, Microsoft & Yahoo!). In acquiring ScreenTonic, Microsoft as a matter of fact just recruited smart people.

So far, so good.

But isn’t Microsoft the epitome of the centralized organization? A world corporation that locates all product developments at its headquarters? Won’t all their top software developers be asked to relocate to Redmond? Not at all, or – let’s put it that way, not anymore.

Microsoft is adapting globalization and goes for agility. The world is full of smart people, and Microsoft probably believes France has a few of them as it decided to maintain ScreenTonic’s product development, in other words mobile advertising R&D, in Paris.

Good for France, which seems to have become Microsoft’s mobile technologies lab (15 months ago, Microsoft had also acquired Paris-based mobile search start up MotionBridge – see Walter Adamson’s post here).

2) Second good reason: Microsoft cares for its shareholders

Speaking of shareholder value creation, 90% of mergers are a disaster, 2/3 of acquisitions are failures – and I guess this is even more sort of true in the world of technology. When it comes to acquisitions, small is beautiful. It minimizes the integration, clash-of-cultures, risk and allows for the target (the small company) to make use of the predator (the big one) as a leverage to enhance its growth (CISCO does this perfectly for instance).

I wouldn’t be surprised if ScreenTonic’s sales and profit suddenly accelerated (reassured clients, cash to hire sales staff, marketing budgets on the rise, media hype, etc.).

3) Third reason (The Evil one): Unlike Yahoo! (Flickr, Del.icio.us, etc.) for instance, Microsoft shows Blindness 2.0

Why the heck is Microsoft waiting for to enter the Web 2.0 era? Here’s a quote from one of Robert Scoble’s recent posts, following Nick Carr’s statement that Microsoft would die: “Yesterday I was talking to some people and noted that in Web 1.0 Microsoft acquired Hotmail. What’s Microsoft’s big Web 2.0 acquisition? I can’t think of one. Why is that?” (source: Scobleizer)

My call: Microsoft should go for Facebook. Just to show them.

Okay, maybe not…

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