The Computer Software company Microsoft has announced a quarterly loss of almost five hundred million dollars, the first in its 26 years as a public company. The loss came after the company wrote off most of the value over investment in online advertising. Five years ago Microsoft spent six billion dollars on an internet advertising firm, Aquantive.The aim was to become a serious rival in this area to other online giants notable Google and Yahoo. But the investment did not work out and now Microsoft is written off almost the entire amount of money paid.