Micro-hoo



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Posted by: stak
Posted on: 2008-02-08 00:24:32

The Microsoft bid for Yahoo! seems pretty stupid to me. It reeks of desperation, and I'm also very suspicious of the timing. Sure, it came just after Yahoo! announced poor earnings and a plan to cut 1,000 jobs, but it also came just after the reserve price was met in the 700 MHz auction.

None of the news articles I've read seem to have connected the MS bid with the auction, but I think the auction is a huge win for Google, and might have been the one of things to push Microsoft into actually making their offer. Since the reserve price was met, the open access requirements that the FCC mandated will go into effect, which is good for users and, of course, Google. They're going to be able to push more ads to everybody, and possibly subsidize entire mobile packages using the revenue they're going to get from location-based mobile ads.

This means a widening gap between Google and everybody else, so Microsoft needed to do something to offset that. Never mind the integration problems (Yahoo! runs all their stuff on open-source platforms and FreeBSD, whereas Microsoft uses (presumably) Windows and .NET). Never mind the horrible, horrible duplication of services (see the cage match for an amusing comparison). It's all about getting Yahoo! users into Microsoft's pocket.

Ironically, if this deal goes through, I'm betting it's going to help Google much more than Microsoft or Yahoo!. All the best Yahoo! engineers will take the CalTrain down a couple of stops and start working for Google. Inspired by the Google culture, they will do more for Google than they've been able to do under the crappy management at Yahoo!. Microsoft will end up with the Yahoo! employees to lazy or stupid to jump ship. Microsoft is going to attempt to integrate Yahoo! services with their own, but fail miserably and have to shut down a bunch of them (see cage match). Users, rather than migrating to the services Microsoft decides to keep, will abandon Micro-hoo altogether and switch to using Google products which are superior anyway.

Posted by stak at 2008-02-15 22:10:49
Aha!. It's already happening. Although it seems like Microsoft is also bleeding employees.
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Posted by varun at 2008-02-16 11:28:55
Mini's been saying that too!
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