Microsoft-Yahoo: What you need to know
ABOUT FIVE SECONDS after writing the previous short piece on Microsoft-Yahoo, I got a call from the BBC asking if I could go to White City to tell world+dog what I thought of the news. I live only about six miles from the studio but, since this is London on a Friday lunchtime, there was no way I was going to get there in 20 minutes for a live transmission.
So TV misses out on this face of miraculously preserved male beauty but INQUIRER readers get the scoop on the opinion that counts.
I’ll tell you what I told the BBC researcher – this is huge. If it’s not the most important acquisition in technology history then it’s doing a pretty good impersonation. Microsoft gets top-notch internet properties such as Mail, Answers and the rest. OK, so Yahoo hasn’t been on its game recently but it’s still got an across-the-board roster of good-to-great services and a merger means that the two firms don’t have to replicate features.
The price is high but then the so are the spoils as the internet is still taking baby steps. When it’s all grown up, truly global and benefiting from broadband ubiquity, the valuations on the best land will be stratospheric.
This is about becoming the most important company in technology, bar none.
This deal more than quadruples the biggest tech mergers of the past. Forget HP-Compaq, Symantec-Veritas, Oracle-PeopleSoft and the rest of Larry Ellison’s shopping spree. This shows that Microsoft is taking the gloves off when it comes to world domination. The $6bn a year R&D budget bought it a lot but now it is clearly ready to use its financial clout to clobber the opposition. There were clues that this might happen.
As part of the US government’s persecution of Microsoft a few years ago it was revealed that it had early-stage merger discussions with SAP. If that deal had gone ahead, the price would have been about $50 billion.
Then last year, Microsoft agreed a deal to buy ad network Aquantive for about $6 billion, smashing through its record of never spending more than about $1.5 billion on buyouts. What next? I’ve said before on these pages that Microsoft needs to add in Ebay and maybe Ask.com too to have a Google-like footprint.
The catch? Microsoft still can’t catch Google in search and search is the honeypot that keeps users buzzing about other services. One plea to regulators: keep the hell out of this. There is a clear leader in this space and Microsoft+Yahoo doesn’t represent an unfair challenge.
This is a combination that makes sense for internet users and Google needs the competition to keep it up to the mark. µ
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you just want to see a big honking war, admit it :)

Google will lose this fight unless it comes out with an OS that can match MS in terms of ease of use.

Yes, Google deserves the competition. But, M$ has abused its monopoly power.

A fair and reasonable solution would be to require M$ to split into 3 separate companies: OS, applications, and internet. Then, and only then, permit the internet company to buy Yahoo.

ScottJ


A snake can try and eat a horse, but it will probably die in the attempt.

Some may see this as an aggressive move by Microsoft. However I see it as a defensive move. Balmer can add up as well as anybody and he knows that on the current Google growth rate it will be bigger than Microsoft by 2010.

Microsoft _has_ to do something to keep some of the ad money from flowing into Google before it's to late. 

If Yahoo accepts, Microsofts problems are only just beginning - ask Time Warner and AOL.
Heres Yahoos explanation: 

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080201/microsoft_yahoo.html?.v=14 

AMD is now strong $7.68 & thats progressive predictable flucuator, good for easy $,its in AMD protocol, while Yahoo is for dreamers, as profit is already done deal, just watch suckers line up, hoping for more..

Sure Fast Money, If you can PINCH IT.

thomas s von drashek md
If Microsoft really wants to take a serious shot at beating Google they are going to have to take the vice like death-grip off the average user’s crotch. In recent times Microsoft has dragged its name through the mud more than usual and as a result most users hate anything with a Microsoft stamp on it. So if they can use an alternative THEY WILL!

Microsoft you’d better change those spots before they look like malignant cancerous growths.
Doesn't matter how big the implications, the fact is mergers tend to have a poor success record. On paper their assets sound good, but in reality you run into issues like mismatch of corporate culture, difficulties interfacing internal systems and all these kinds of things, that can take years to sort out.

It could very well keep Microsoft so preoccupied trying to sort it out that its competitors get the jump on it.
Soon we will hear that we need to upgrade our PC's to use yahoo, register with "genuine search advantage", and the main page will bloat to a 50MB load.

Not to mention only Vista will work with it, but Windows7 will be slated to include a seamless tie-in with it's UI and Yahoo. Unfortunately the feature wont work, and after delaying the release 2 years to get it working, will be dropped and forgotten until Windows 13, when it still wont work.

Don't feed the Voles!
Martin, you are wrong. This deal should not go through. Microsoft is a convicted monopolist of extremely rapatious nature, and ought to be prevented from acquiring other companies, just as child sex offenders are not permitted any future contact with children.

Microsoft cannot be trusted -- they haven't changed their spots, probably are incapable of changing, and so should be kept on a very tight rein.

Unfortunately, there probably aren't laws or precedent to prevent it. But that doesn't make allowing or encouraging this acquisition right.
"regulators: keep the hell out of this"
Are you mad?
Netscape had a 90% browser ratio until Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer in Windows, the rest is history. 
I'm no Google fan but at least I can choose which browser to use and which platform to use it on. How long until Yahoo prioritises Windows only web based services to consolidate their stranglehold?
Google has a large market share because it provides a good service, you're not forced to use it. I suspect the same will not be true about Yahoo in the future.
I can't wait until they change all their web servers over to IIS and Yahoo!.com disappears off the web.

Hotmail anyone?