Ed Stevenson is the European MD of Marin Software, which provides paid search management technology for advertisers and agencies.

I've been talking to Ed, who is also a guest blogger for Econsultancy, about his predictions for the paid search market, and the impact of the Microsoft / Yahoo partnership...

Can you tell me about Marin Software?

Marin Software was founded in 2006, and we
starting selling our main paid search management application in October 2007. We
developed our search marketing technology to allow advertisers
and agencies to manage their PPC campaigns more effectively, by
taking away menial tasks and saving them time.

This greater
efficiency should help advertisers and agencies to concentrate on more important aspects of their campaigns. In the US, we quickly became one of the
leading suppliers, and now manage $650m of search spending worldwide.

We're now expending into Europe, and opened
our first London office in March this year, initially employing three
people, though we now have eight staff, and are having to move to new
premises.

Why i