Microsoft to Buy Greenfield, Adding Shopping Sites

By Phil Serafino and Dina Bass

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp., seeking to catch Google Inc. in the Internet-search market, agreed to buy Greenfield Online Inc. for $486 million to add Web sites that help consumers find product reviews and compare prices.

Greenfield shareholders will get $17.50 a share in cash, Microsoft said today in a statement. Greenfield, which runs the Ciao shopping sites in Europe, ended a takeover agreement with Quadrangle Group LLC for $15.50 a share this week to pursue a higher offer.

Microsoft, which handles about 9 percent of Web searches in the U.S., has an even lower share abroad. The company is adding more services that help consumers find products on the Internet, an area where it says its software is more effective than Google's. Munich-based Ciao provides consumer reviews and ratings along with prices from online merchants.

``Almost all of the revenue from search advertising comes from transactional searches,'' said Charles Di Bona, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York. Improving the results for those queries is Microsoft's best chance to make more money, he said.

Microsoft to Buy Greenfield, Adding Shopping Sites....