M$ lays off gobs of Yahoo! works it no longer needs. All that duplication of service doesn't only mean websites - it means labor too.

You know, until today, I didn't even know Yahoo had a search engine!

If I wasn't such a Luddite I'd be with gmail instead of Y! Mail by now.

One day...

This acquisition should not significantly improve search engine quality. Unless Yahoo has some really nice patents or interesting trade secrets, which I doubt, two wrongs will not make a right. This is not to say that the search experience could not become superior as a result of this acquisition.

You are right on the money boys!
It'll be good for the shareholders of Yahoo, but outside of MSFT and YHOO no cares what those two do.

Interestingly, all they'd really need to compete with google is a quiet, empty, white search page. (shh...)

Having a better search engine would be a plus, but considering the fact that every search yields a million results these days, it is really all about the nice clean page.

I guess a bunch of ShaMooY news is better than Charlie complaining about his tech company of the week to hate.

on how long it takes for M$ to close-down Yahoo's operation in total....

My estimate is within the year....

Same old M$ tactics, if you can beat them, but them and shut-down.

And again M$ wastes dividend money on competition then payup to the shareholders.

So typical....sadly nobody but our dutch Neely dares to stop them.:-)