AskJeeves takes an early summer vacation and buys Excite Europe in an effort to expand its overseas operations. AskJeeves had previously bought the U. S. Excite counterpart in March 2004. Excite is a well-known brand name in the search arena, opening its doors in 1995.
According to the AskJeeves press release, “The acquisition of Excite Europe will extend Ask Jeeves’ ownership of the Excite brand beyond the United States, giving the Company ownership of Excite’s Internet domains throughout Europe as well as control of existing portal offerings in several major European markets including Spain, Italy, France, UK, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. The acquisition provides immediate access to a wealth of resources in the European portal market in terms of users, operations, market knowledge and revenue streams. Ask Jeeves will also have the ability to extend its leading search technology to Excite Europe users.”
AskJeeves still remains a David among the Goliaths of Google, Yahoo! and MSN. However, this has been the year of acquisitions and mergers for the search company. Acquiring Bloglines in February 2005 and then being acquired by IAC/Interactive in late March 2005, AskJeeves continues to aggressively search for a competitive edge against the “Big 3” search giants.
Many top companies have built themselves up through strategic mergers and acquisitions. This may indeed be AskJeeves plan. Scooping up smaller companies with important and beneficial technology is how Adobe has operated and achieved greatness for years. Since AskJeeves, though is the 6th largest global web property, they still have a ways to go in the search engine marathon. But what is clear for 2005, is that AskJeeves is making its move along the track and the Big 3 had better start peeking over their shoulders to see who is coming up from behind.
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