WPP Digital makes acquisitions and strategic investments in companies that improve the WPP's offerings in the digital space, right? Okay, so know Digital includes something that WPP is calling Deliver. Neal Prescott (pictured above) will be the new unit's CEO. Prescott was formerly the Executive Vice President and Global Head of Technology Enablement at Digitas. Sounds important.

What does Deliver do per se? It's sort of like a dating service. A WPP agency needs to build a web experience for one of their clients, so they tap Deliver. The system (or is it a person?) runs through a database of production capabilities in all of its units from Asia to South Africa to channel the assignment to the best qualified shop within the WPP family.

Mark Read, Chief Executive Officer of WPP Digital said in a press release that: "By choosing to utilize Deliver, our agencies will be able to offer clients the best way to do the best work online at the best possible cost."

All this is pretty vague. The press release (natch) doesn't mention anything about how it works. What is known is that they can choose to use the system or not, which is kind of stupid. If it's about price for WPP, which is seems to be, then it should be mandatory that you check the darn thing and see what pops up, rather than just go with your favorite.

I'll give WPP this... they're always finding ways to muck up the creative flow with more process.

A member of Dell's digital media team has been outspoken both on AgencySpy and Tribble Ad Agency over the recent allegations that VP of Marketing Casey Jones has been placed on probation. He says Jones isn't on probation, and told us so by commenting on the story.

"I Don't know where you got this notion, but there isn't an ounce of truth in your conjecture. We understand that you're in the gossip business, but you should have a modicum of responsibility when blindly speculating on an individual's career. This is simply wrong."

The commenter, RichardatDell, (real name Richard Binhammer) left this comment both on AgencySpy and Tribble (although it seems to have disappeared from AS — which we had nothing to do with). We figured out who he was after a quick Google search of RichardatDell, the name attached to said comment.

More after the jump.

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Avenue A|Razorfish could be up for sale by Microsoft, a spy tells us, possibly to WPP. From the beginning of the relationship, AA|RF has been an odd fit for Microsoft, and based on a few strong indicators, we surmise a sell off before too long.

When you're spending $6 billion to pick up a company like Redmond, it makes sense to get as much for your money as possible. That seems to be what Microsoft was thinking when they kept AA|RF — but a year later the agency is broadening its horizons, expanding services to "a media and entertainment consulting practice with 200 staffers in New York, L.A. and San Francisco," according to Silicon Alley Insider.

More after the jump.

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Dell's VP of Marketing, Casey Jones, is in hot water. The May 2007 hire, who pushed for the seemingly botched WPP/Enfatico consolidation plan, may not have much time left (at least that's what we're told) and is apparently on probation.

We hear that after a meeting with the Dell board, Jones was unable to convince the higher-ups that things are going well.

More after the jump.

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Leave it to the tech savvy Tribble dudes to come up with an idea and make it happen. They've built a fun little Web site that's synced up with an uber official atomic clock, that is putting the numbers to Enfatico.

The numbers on a clock that is. Tribble has built this Web site, which keeps track of how much time has passed since Dell signed with WPP, and how long we've been waiting for the Enfatico-DaVince-Synarchy work to come out.

As expected, the clocks show the same amount of time. Currently, it's been 242 days, 16 hours, 0 minutes, 36 seconds. That long already?

Conversely, there's another "clock" counting down the days until Enfatico's contract with Dell expires, which as of this moment reads 853 days, 7 hours, 59 minutes, 24 seconds.

When you land at the site, you won't see a ticking clock. But hit refresh and the numbers will change for you. The idea, Tribble reports, was taken from the gregarious George Parker, who wrote about it here.

Now we can all watch together, as the time ticks by. Bear in mind, I'm told Enfatico Austin (again, my name) is up and churning while the New York and Austin offices are getting pimped out. Oh, the Austin crew is working on another floor of the same building during construction.

According to the CoStar Group Web site, WPP's Enfatico has just signed a 10-year lease for office space in the MetLife Insurance Plaza, at 11 Madison Ave., here in Manhattan.

The offices total 98,175 square feet, and is on the building's 12th floor. That may be more than enough space to handle the $4.5 billion account, and the fancy analytics machine that's promised to measure Dell's media outreach. (OK, so it's probably not going to be in the same building...)

A curious point of contention in Enfatico's hive-mind must be, "What will we do if Dell doesn't re-sign?" If my math is correct, the three-year contract is seven years short of the lease agreement.

Does Enfatico, the "single-client" agency, plan on acquiring more clients; are they that crazy; or maybe they measure in dog years? You decide, but something's up. Kudos to Tribble for noticing this.

More on the deal that made Enfatico possible, here and here.

A recent story published on Bloomerg.com might say more than authors Gillian Wee and Tim Mullaney let on.

The article, entitled "Time Warner's AOL `Nightmare' May Worsen on Slowdown (Update 1)" covers the troubles the world's largest media company is having in terms of ridding itself of AOL.

Buried in subtext, one could surmise a lot from the following two excerpts.

"Philippe Krakowsky, an executive vice president for strategy at ad company Interpublic Group of Cos.; Lance Maerov, a senior vice president at WPP Group Plc; and Rich Stalzer, president of IAC/InterActiveCorp.'s advertising solutions group, said they aren't interested in buying AOL's ad businesses."

But based on the following remark by Maerov, it seems as though the option was considered.

"'Arithmetically, we can't support the valuation they put on it on any reasonable analysis,' said WPP's Maerov, who is based in New York."

So why would WPP consider such a buyout? Tribble, who we can thank for finding this one, said the following:

"(This) is the worst advice I have ever heard...WPP or Interpublic buying AOL...These companies don't even acknowledge the internet exists for the most part...a firm like that buying AOL would just make AOL even less popular as none of the holding companies have a clear vision of what people want online. To make is worse...WPP actually considered and ran the numbers to see if they could purchase it..."

More after the jump.

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OK OK so you all remember, obviously, that Dell recently cut off all ties to the real world by putting together its own shop. A friend of mine, who built one of their interactive biz sites tells me that like, half his shop is gone following the fall out.

And since Dell had at least a billion addies working for them worldwide, the shock waves still haven't fully subsided. Nonetheless, we've followed Dell's every move via big daddy Death Star WPP. Initially, we got Synarchy. More after the jump.

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Straight from Joe at PRNewser.com.

After some speculation, the WPP / Dell global marketing firm, known up until now as Da Vinci, has a permanent name: Enfatico.

The word comes from musical notation, where it means to play each note "with emphasis" or "emphatically."

For background, "Enfatico consolidates Dell's worldwide marketing services, previously handled by more than 800 firms, into a single, wholly integrated global agency."

Full release after the jump.

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Well to end the week, we'll send you off with this note from a more than overworked addie. This is why we love anonymous tips, and why I wish more like this came in. With no further ado...

"WTF WPP? Yeah, it excels at M&A, but the methods it uses to suck assets out of one shop and arbitrarily attach them to their own holdings destroys careers. Part of the criteria for corporate leadership must be a how-to course in the Svengali-like power of positive Powerpoint to stun the worker bees long enough to keep any remaining clients from jumping ship before the deal's done. Imagine, sitting in a conference room, watching the charming and diffident Brit in charge of the Chicago office give a foam core&151—it's more sincere&151—presentation about how, yes, there's STILL no work after its core business was transfered his stronghold, little income, and a huge overhead, but G2 is going to let the stalwart survivors of its Stamford shop rebrand and rebuild its offerings and come back, even better than before. Fast forward about 5 months to find a few remaining employees packing up client files to ship to Circle 1 in Norwalk, WPP's newest, shiniest acquisition. Leadership used to mean responsibility. Kudos to Stamford's own leadership who did their best to keep the agency afloat and its staff employed throughout the rape and plunder."

Fight the pow...errrrr.