As the WSJ reports, apparently DoubleClick is looking for suitors, and Microsoft is one who is rumored to be interested.

It’s hard to know if that would be a great move for Microsoft or not. There are so many moving advertising parts at each company it’s tough to analyze.

Immediately focus turns on what this means for Google, and John Battelle brings up the notion of GoogleClick, Google’s entry into the third-party ad serving space with which he ends it by just saying “More Soon”.

I’ve been hearing rumors from various places for month that Google already has an ad serving product in private beta being tested with a few publishers, but that they’re out trying to get other top publishers to try it out. While I don’t know exact details, I’ve heard rumors that it’s free and would be subsidized by making Adsense the default for unsold (remnant) impressions. Interesting, sounds a lot like RMX Direct, except without the benefit of being able to have a whole exchange as well as Adsense or others as your option for unsold impressions.

I think we’ll hear a lot more about this in Q2.