Microsoft Corp.'s top saleswoman for Web advertising, Joanne Bradford, spent her first few years on the job secretly wondering if the software giant was serious about cashing in on the Internet.

When she joined Microsoft in 2001, the company lacked a search engine of its own and had no clear Web advertising strategy. Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. made multibillion-dollar businesses of search-related advertising while Microsoft waited.

"I wasn't sure the first couple of years that we were here to stay," said Bradford, Microsoft's corporate Vice President for global sales and marketing. "I thank Yahoo and Google for proving that a software company can be a media company and a media company can be a software company."

These days, Microsoft is very serious about grabbing a larger piece of the $15 billion US market for Internet advertising with a revamped search engine and a new system called adCenter to sell pay-per-click ads across the company's Web content and services.

Microsoft plans to overhaul its Web presence, consolidating e-mail, instant messaging, online PC security and search at its Windows Live site along with new offerings like an online marketplace in order to increase traffic and create valuable space for advertisers.

However, the company faces an uphill climb.

Microsoft's MSN Internet unit generated $1.4 billion in online advertising revenue in its past fiscal year, while Google pulled in $6 billion in sales and Yahoo racked up $4.6 billion in 2005.

The company's strategic push combined with a steadily growing Internet advertising market -- expected to reach $26 billion in 2009, according to Forrester Research -- should boost Microsoft's online advertising sales.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft could double (its online advertising revenue) in three to five years," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at independent research firm Directions on Microsoft based in Kirkland, Washington.

(www.financialexpress.com)