Robert B Tillman, 6964 Shadowbrook Dr UNIT B, Hudson, NH 03051

2011025, Oct 20, 2011

Apr 16, 2010

12/761961

David M. Chickering - Bellevue WA, US
Christopher A. Meek - Kirkland WA, US
Denis X. Charles - Bellevue WA, US
Robert Elliott Tillman - Pittsburgh PA, US

MICROSOFT CORPORATION - Redmond WA

G06Q 30/00
G06N 5/02
G06F 15/18
G06Q 10/00

705 1453, 705 144, 705 1473, 706 12, 706 52

Various embodiments provide techniques for inventory management. In one or more embodiments, a probabilistic model is constructed to represent an inventory of ad impressions available from a service provider. The probabilistic model can be based on a traffic model that describes historic interaction of clients with the service provider using various attributes that define the ad impressions. The probabilistic model provides a distribution of the attributes and relates the attributes one to another based on dependencies. When an order from an advertiser for ad impressions is booked by the service provider, the probabilistic model is updated to reflect an expected probabilistic decrease in the inventory of ad impressions. The updated probabilistic model can then be employed to determine whether the inventory of ad impressions is sufficient to book subsequent orders for ad impressions.