Submitted by Microsoft has offered to buy the search engine company Yahoo for USD 44.6bn in cash and shares. The offer, contained in a letter to Yahoo’s board, is 62% above Yahoo’s closing share price on Thursday. Yahoo cut its revenue forecasts earlier this week and said it would have to spend an additional USD 300m this year trying to revive the company. It has been struggling in recent years to compete with Google, which has also been a competitor to Microsoft. Update: More here.
End of story,
basically.
Why not? Remember, having a monopoloy is not illegal, just using it to engage in anti-competitive behavior. I think that most people would call Yahoo and search service, where Google clearly rules the roost. And their other big services are Flickr and Yahoo Mail – neither of which is especially unique or has a large enough marketshare to prevent a deal like this.
Not that laws ever stopped large companies in this country before…
I just don’t think a buyout would be accepted internationally. They would have to jump through ridiculous hoops to get such a thing signed through, least not the EU.
And what about Yahoo pride? The shareholders would say yes, their eyes lit up with money, but the staff would rather jump ship IMO than be a Microsoft property, especially if they were no longer allowed to run their ship how they saw fit.
staff would’nt need to jump, they would be pushed…
to many ‘same’ products to develop them both in the long run, which do you think will get the priority?
I just don’t think a buyout would be accepted internationally… least not the EU.
If EU Allows Google+Doubleclick then why not MS+Yahoo! ?
Their combined market share would still be behind that of Google.
but the staff would rather jump ship IMO than be a Microsoft property, especially if they were no longer allowed to run their ship how they saw fit.
What?! On what basis do you say that? Leave that to Yahoo! employees, they live in REAL world and have families to feed and won’t just cut off and abandon everything en masse because their new boss is Microsoft.
Edited 2008-02-01 14:46 UTC
Yahoo is a big, long time supporter of FreeBSD and it uses FreeBSD for the servers. Could be a big blow against FreeBSD imho.
I was just thinking the exact same thing. Let’s hope this doesn’t happen.
Yahoo are replacing much of their BSD stuff with Linux at the moment.
“Yahoo are replacing much of their BSD stuff with Linux at the moment.”
Yeah, right (lol). Please post a link to that source
I can’t provide a link to you that’s not internal to Yahoo!, but their Everest database platform (which I’m working on in Bellevue, WA) is Red Hat linux.
Check netcraft for .yahoo.com.
I’m sure yahoo has Linux projects in the works, but much of their externally facing infrastructure is (and will be) FreeBSD.
Everest is their search engine click-through data processing database platform, that runs on huge multiple node multiple cluster systems (meant to process multi-petabyte databases), and is in active use *RIGHT NOW* (not beta, not alpha, but released) and something customers (those that buy ads) get to see. Just because the average user may see one type of server OS exposed in one place they look, doesn’t mean squat as to what’s doing the heavy lifting for other things.
It’s not one server, most(!) of their server are FreeBSD.
Where’s your data to say “most” because unless you’re internal to Yahoo! itself and know all of the servers, how can you say? All you can see is what’s exposed via some limited system: you can’t see what’s on the intranet: those are only the servers exposed to the general public. that’s ALL you can determine.
Yahoo! also uses C# under Windows for at least some of their frontend software, but that doesn’t mean they’re a Microsoft shop, if you only go by that.
The initial point (which is now being tediously drawn out) was that Yahoo! was and is a huge FreeBSD consumer and supporter.
Their customer/web facing servers are primarily FreeBSD. I’d say that’s pretty key given the traffic volume they accommodate.
You have an inside look at a large Linux project, you’re aware of MS products being used, etc. That’s great. You and your fanbois (or your multiple accounts) can mod up a thousand times while you continue to split hairs, but IMO the initial point still stands.
Yeah it must be fanbois and multiple accounts if it differs from your opinion *sigh*.
The point I made was that they are moving a lot of stuff from BSD to RHEL, and they are. Get over it, lots of people still use BSD.
Incidentally I don’t use RedHat so I really could care less if Yahoo use RedHat or BSD.
Hah, your post is a combination of funny and pathetic at the same time!
Seriously, I’m not a fanbois of any particular OS or employer: I’m in transition from contract to permanent at Yahoo ATM, one approval signature away (things move slowly there) and I’ve developed professionally for and using: MS-DOS, Windows 16 bit, all but Windows Vista beyond that, VRTX (hard real-time OS) Linux and BeOS (thus far) and some purely embedded code on a processor without an OS: in other words, I go where the projects and the interest/money are, and I’m about as OS-agnostic as you’ll get, and I’m admittedly cynical about buying into any single employer with all my heart, mind and soul, because I’ve been laid off or threatened with layoff from almost every employer I’ve worked for since 92.
A search engine/advertising giant like Microsoft, Yahoo and Google are much like an iceberg when it comes to exposure to the outside world: you only get to see the tip, but probably > 90% of the computational hardware is never exposed to anyone outside the company. Thus, making statements (without being an insider) that one of them is “mostly such and such” is a fool’s folly at best, and I’m not about to try to state what the percentages are: I’ll just tell you that the system I’m working on works with the largest dataset for search/browse data on earth (to target ads), and is sized appropriately, and they add enough data each day to easily fill the largest hard drives currently made. I’d have no trouble moving it over to whatever OS they chose, and I use BeOS/Haiku/OS X and Win2K3 and Vista personally at home, and there’s not a single one that I see as being ideal for everything, and I don’t see that ever happening.
Similarly, I’m not convinced moving Yahoo! over to a single OS/platform is the best solution, because of what I said above. And no, I only have a single account, though I admit, I’ve posted today from home as well as work (I live < 6 miles away from work and stop home for lunch most days) so I’m not doing any funny stuff. Heck, I chat with Thom Holwerda regularly in IRC
(not that that means much… Hi Thom!)
Hah, insults. Now you’re trolling.
Did I make that statement?
Again, the initial point was that yahoo is a huge FreeBSD consumer and supporter. That doesn’t imply to me that they’re a FreeBSD monoculture. As for my comment about their externally facing infrastructure, a quick look at netcraft will confirm this.
For the record, since everyone feels compelled to fully disclose OS loyalties, I’m an avid FreeBSD and GNU/Linux (mostly CentOS) sysadmin and user.
We’re arguing past one another, or you just like to argue in general, or I just like to argue in general, or any combination of the above.
Yeah they’re running on an ancient fork of one of the BSD flavours (I forget which, but loads of their software is forks of OSS projects, they have their own version of Apache for instance). Yes they have a huge BSD infrastructure and it’s not going to disappear over night, but much of it is being moved.
Of course if MS take them over then it’ll probably all go the way of Hotmail.
Do you remember Hotmail? They uses FreeBSD too, long time ago.
Weird. Which forum rule did I break that got this (previous) post modded down?
Fanbois strike again.
I raised it back up for you, what you said was true.
It’s a symptom of a broken mod system. Small, spiteful folks will mod down posts they disagree with.
Nothing new around here. Just wondering if the offender was interested in sharing which forum rule was broken.
And if MS does step in they will be slowing switching to windows. As I believe we saw when they acquired hotmail.
No really they are, RHEL for desktops at least. I’ve a friend who works as a developer there. I mean it’ll take years, but they’re doing it.
It is the other way around especially with mysql servers.
“Yahoo are replacing much of their BSD stuff with Linux at the moment.”
Good lord — why?!
Does microsoft want to buy yahoo or yahoo’s market share?
I’m just a bit skeptical.
Terrible news for users of Flickr, Zimbra, PHP, FreeBSD, Yahoo Pipes, non-IE browsers, and any other technologies or services based on open source.
Yah, basically look at it this way:
MSNSpaces vs. Blogger
Hotmail vs. GMail/Yahoo Mail
MSN Messenger vs. Yahoo Messenger
MSN Photos vs Flickr
MSN.com vs. Yahoo.com / Google
MSNSearch vs. Heck, even Altavista
MSN sucks at everything, and I mean /everything/ web-based. They cannot write web apps to save their life, and culturally, they’re bland and soulless.
A Microsoft buyout would be a disaster on the scale of the last bubble. Could you imagine a .NET passport integrated version of Flickr??? Kill me now….
So does this mean that Microsoft admits “Live” is a failure?
“Terrible news for users of Flickr, Zimbra, PHP, FreeBSD, Yahoo Pipes, non-IE browsers, and any other technologies or services based on open source.”
Ermm..how so? Yahoo has supported pretty much only windows for things over the last years. There is plenty of content on Yahoo that will not run in Firefox and where IE is required. I really do not understand this statement, unless they contributed to the other projects in some way I am not aware of.
Yahoo recently bought Zimbra one of the most promising open source competitors to Exchange.
Yahoo extensively uses and supports PHP.
Most of Yahoo’s servers run FreeBSD
Flickr currently does work well with Firefox if MS gets Yahoo I don’t know how long that will last.
“Yahoo recently bought Zimbra one of the most promising open source competitors to Exchange.”
This I knew about, though besides funding I don’t know what Yahoo has in it.
“Most of Yahoo’s servers run FreeBSD”
That could be, but is that a contribution? Microsoft runs *nix as well on some of it’s servers.
No idea at all about flickr, as I don’t use photo sharing sites. Those are right up there with Facebook and Myspace as worthless to the net IMO.
Thanks for the response though. It looks like I was mistaken and they have a bigger hand in OSS then I originally thought.
I doubt MSFT runs any form of Unix on its internal servers. It does use akamai’s linux network for its static external web content, but afaik, no unix internally.
IIRC, Yahoo is a big sponsor of PHP, so if this goes through it could be bad news for PHP.
And I mean it. I have been using Yahoo for over 10 years and for a free service it’s been consistently good throughout that period.
I hope the Micros*ft Maw chokes on this.
Please.. They have always been super restrictive. The only reason you get more than 3mb without having to pay for the “premium” version mail box is because they had to compete with gmail. I wouldnt be supprised if they had completely dropped the free email by now if gmail hadn’t started.
Well…it’s a service that has pefectly suited my needs (especially in the context of having had pretty strict limits for most of those 10 years set by my parent institution regarding sending attachments – type and size).
In any case, by your own logic, Yahoo should remain in the game, since obviously competition brings benefits to the user.
This is great, this purchase should distract MS enough that it will finally loose its monopoly position. I predict a self imposed breakup of MS sometime in the next 5 years and a write off of most of their goodwill.
Very interesting viewpoint. Buying Yahoo, if it were allowed, could very well be that point that future historians point back to as MS’s fatal mistake. +1 for original thinking. That idea is worth further consideration.
article is a bunch of crap. MS blames google for merger, but they don’t understand that there is nothing wrong with MS leaving the web business altogether. They would not be missed one bit. That would probably help yahoo more too.
I agree, Microsoft should stick to making Operating Systems and Office Suites. Well, I wouldn’t even use their Operating Systems, and since I’m just a poor person who usually writes poetry or short stories and have no need for a full office suite, Abiword or Openoffice.org Writer work just fine. Why oh why can’t MS just allow someone to buy Word, or Excel separately?
They should basically stay away from everything else. Microsoft has the biggest “Me too!” attitude of any corporation on the planet. “Hey, you’re making some good money with xxx, I think I want that. Oh wait, you don’t want to sell it to me? Well, I’ll just make a product similar, not as good or refined, and just market the hell out of it. You’ll just be a memory after that of course. You should have just sold us your product and we all would have been happy.”
They don’t give a crap about the customers or their rights.
I won’t say that Microsoft is the only company that does this, but really all the smaller companies in this industry (or any industry for that matter) always get bought up by the large corporations, so that there is no competition and innovation anymore.
Let’s just look at the splintered instant messenger history. ICQ was great in the day, bought by AOL. Yahoo Messenger is great (though their Linux support stinks), but if Microsoft buys them out, I bet it’ll simply be discontinued, or merged into MSN Messenger, which I can’t stand.
It’s not like any of these protocols are really superior over another, at least as far as the users are concerned.
I’m actually kind of surprised that Microsoft hadn’t bought up Cyrix, or AMD or Intel already. Sure I know AMD and Intel are both huge now, but back in the day when AMD were first making x86 compatible chips, Microsoft could have tried going the Apple route and making hardware and software. Perhaps Vista would have actually been worthwhile then
It is a well known fact that is one of the reasons why Macs are so stable.
I really hope Yahoo doesn’t sell out. There really are too few large companies that have any sort of dignity left. Not that this is anything new. Look toward Commodore or SCO for a good example of greed and self-serving scum.
If Yahoo were to be bought, I think someone who doesn’t already have a stake in the search engine market should do it. Someone like IBM, Sun, Novell, etc. Unfortunately I don’t think they have the cash.
If this goes through, Google should release a free OS and a free office suite, maybe their own Linux distribution and an improved OpenOffice.
This would be, IMHO, the only way to avoid that Microsoft’s monopoly gets a lot worse than it is now.
Google and Yahoo are demonstrating that the OS is no longer as relevant as used to be.
Google releasing an OS would be like farting into the wind.
Google already have an online office suite, online mail, online web apps for almost everything an office user is going to do with their OS.
Google are already marginalising Windows, because companies cannot justify Vista in order to run a few internal webapps.
Is this close enough for you?
http://www.thinkgos.com/
Honestly this whole all apps on the web thing really stinks in my opinion. I can not for the life of me see what is supposed to be so beneficial about running all of your apps in a web browser, and saving all of your private documents, etc on some 3rd party server.
People complain about giving up freedom, then they so easily jump on the web app band wagon where you have absolutly 0 control over the application, or the files you create with it for that matter. (It may seem like you have control over the files you create with it, but I assure you, you dont
Your a bit naive if you think that people who work at google dont have the ability to go through any of the files you save at any time)
I think I will stick with saving MY files on MY hard drive where I can control who does and doesnt see them, and control when I upgrade, and when I dont, and what OS I use.
(Also consider the fact that the operating system will never be meaningless considering that you cant run a web browser with magic).
Edited 2008-02-01 17:09 UTC
I think that is what Mozilla is working toward, but they seem to be missing the “presonal” part of it. The new offline features and APIs being added blur the line of desktop app versus web app. It would be very clever to bend the idea so that you can keep the app your way, and choose how much of the data goes upstream…. the issue being the less is upstream, the less portable it is, unless the offline web also works on memory stix.
Sun have already gone as far as opening up most of the source code of their most popular applications under the GPL. One of their last holdouts is Solaris, which is still licensed under the CDDL, but GPLv3 is a possibility in the future.
It’s said that Microsoft is the world’s largest startup and they indeed still seem to behave that way. Everything that is set to become a threat to their bottom line must either be acquired or eliminated, all for the sake of pushing Windows, Office and their less profitable software.
Really it’s a case of “Microsoft all the way or the highway”. They can’t seem to adapt to the notion that modern problems are solved in a mix and match fashion.
This is done increasingly using FOSS operating systems and applications but if the task at hand requires a number of Microsoft solutions, those could be chosen as well. It all depends on customer satisfaction, not pushing your stuff to the point of aversion.
So another Distro and another fork of OO (MacOS, IBM) would be enough to competite with Microsoft? *rofl*
I said only maybe a Linux distro and OpenOffice, that is not the main point.
My point is that Google’s reply to this Microsoft move should be challenging them in their own territory: operating systems and office suites, in order to preserve competition.
And I am almost 100% sure that they could do better than Microsoft.
Google is not magic. Both companies have a lot of talented engineers, and a lot of people fresh out of college like me, and some people in between. Building up Office took decades and a particular type of expertise, which Google does not necessarily have. Same thing with a consumer operating system. Nothing will cause Google to lose its lustre faster than entering into a market against Microsoft and flopping.
And Microsoft didn’t bite then, either.
We’ve heard that MS were interested before, but now they’ve made an offer.
Let’s not forget the business deals that Yahoo has with ATT. Yahoo is the mail server, portal, support, ^aEUR| hell it is the face of ATT online. If you are a US internet user that uses ATT for your ISP, Microsoft just got one hell of a big captive audience.
A Microsoft/ATT coop deal of that magnitude scares the hell out of me since I use Linux at home. It is hard enough for ATT support when you don^aEURTMt use Outlook Express. Imagine if you have to ask MS for support. They probably only recommend Suse.
Edited 2008-02-01 15:03 UTC
Yahoo! is also the face of Verizon email, user pages. etc. So now that would become Microsoft?
… Buy them.
Or piss them off
———————-
<obligatory>Google must buy Amazon!</obligatory>
I just switched email accounts from WLHM to Yahoo because I prefer the interface and the unlimited space… now it’s going to get re-branded… and Yahoo mail will end up looking like Hotmail :-(. Woe is me.
Edited 2008-02-01 15:19 UTC
Whoa, bucko, it was just an offer. Don’t go worrying about the re-branding of Yahoo mail just yet.
You could have switched to Google Apps for domains which is FREE also (6.8gb currently) for as many email accounts as youneed.. That’s what I did with my hosted services, I offload all the email to google. My customers like it because it’s familiar and comes with alot of other services. I like it because I don’t have to worry about peoples email, if there is a server problem, and it takes a huge load off of the servers.
Do your clients mind it if Google spiders through their email?
I hope this will never happen. I have tons of pics over at Flickr and would take ages to take them back and move to another service.
Change the rules so no one else can play:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend%2C_extinguis…
edit: For those who refuse to follow links.
MS would inherit an astounding customer base and attempt to change the search/advert business in a significant way so that a certain competitor would be ineffective.
It’s a simple matter of sticking with policy.
Edited 2008-02-01 16:08 UTC
Suit calling unto suit in the night: “Cash ahoy!”
No one seems to have explained why Microsoft think that Yahoo is worth 62 per cent more than everyone else does. That’s not just a bit of a premium. It’s many billions more than Yahoo’s market cap and it wouldn’t take all that many disgruntled Microsoft shareholders asking “Why?” for this deal to become controversial. If it gains regulatory approval. A long way yet to run before this becomes a reality.
This is not a good move on Microsoft’s part. Integrating all of the Yahoo tech with the Microsoft Live Stuff will probably not work, and I can’t see Microsoft supporting two vastly different systems. The only plus side I see for MS is getting the Yahoo name, but is that really worth all of that effort? I can’t see Yahoo turning down this amount of stock though.
I can live with Yahooms better than Googlems.
Seriously, this would spell the end for Yahoo. I guess I better look into moving my main email account from Yahoo to Gmail, and getting rid of mt Yahoo small-business website. Reminds me of AOL buying Netscape. Yahoo would become just a “brand”. The guts would surely go the Microsoft way, which is plenty boring to me. I like Yahoo’s style of doing things. Monocultures are a bummer.
I just got done with the interview process at the local Bellevue Yahoo! office, I’m one approval away from getting the paperwork to sign, including stock options (likely priced about a month later from talking to people I’m working with) I’m currently still technically a Volt employee (though Yahoo has things screwed up such that I can’t seem to file timecards for Volt, so *I think* I’ll be getting paid, but not Volt, until that’s cleared up) and now it seems probable that I interviewed (effectively twice) to work full-time at Yahoo! to find myself likely working for Microsoft, likely with the stock options offered being made worth much less, no idea as to long-term “What will they do?” situation…
So, I may end up working for Microsoft after interviewing for their previous competitor… and I don’t think the culture mix will work out well, as I know a lot of people currently at Microsoft, and the group I’m in uses Linux for a rather major platform Yahoo! uses…
Rod Serling, are you outside my apartment door????
If you’re just doing data analysis and storage, why does the OS really matter that much?
Mark my words, when Microsoft purchases Yahoo, Yahoo’s marketshare will drop even further.
Why are people such idiots? people use google because it isn’t a bloated POS which is laden with advertisements and constant annoying advertisements. That is why I use it over Live and Yahoo – the fact that Yahoo and Live boffins can’t even work that one out tells me more about the pathetic hiring practices of Microsoft and Yahoo than the anything to do with business focus.
I use GMail, Picasa, Google Search etc. all because it is simple, easy to use, multiplatform and reliable. Again, why is it so difficult for Yahoo and Live to produce something that is marginally better?
I think Microsoft is just trying to broaden their business.
When the men in suits at Microsoft look into their crystal balls, they may get a bit afraid of the future although just now Microsoft is still doing quite well. In the operating systems, Linux is gaining more and more marketshare, Apple and Mac OS X is doing quite fine too, there are even promising signs for Solaris and BSDs too. Internet Explorer is not a clear market leader in the browser world anymore (in Finland Firefox is practically as big as IE already). MS Office is still a clear market leader in office suites but Open Office is developing fast too. The whole fast growing mobile business is far from a Microsoft monopoly and there are no signs that competitors would be willing to give Microsoft more marketshare there.
Microsoft must be thinking about their future, where they could broaden their business if OS business etc. won’t bring in enough cash anymore. Google has been doing extremely well, and Microsoft must be thinking that Google’s Internet business could be a good business model for them to follow too.
Seconded.
In addition, Microsoft has been able to compete in lots of other arenas. Gaming, for example: XBox Live is often called the “right way” for such a gaming community to work, compared to the systems of the Wii (hobbled by privacy concerns, requiring you to exchange long passwords to even be able to receive messages) and PS3 (no software, no need).
Their other ventures haven’t been as unassailable as their OS, but that’s okay. An operating system business is an okay, although somewhat risky investment. An operating system, office suite, ERP, console games, PC games, and soon social networking business is an excellent, stable investment.
I didn’t see any announcement but it is true: http://www.vioan.ro/wp/2008/02/01/google-has-acquired-feedburner/
or is it old news?
Finally I think that we will see only google and microsoft
Edited 2008-02-01 18:10 UTC
I think this will be the greatest destruction of shareholder value since the AOL – Time Warner takeover. First of all, Yahoo is going no place, should probably sell for about 1 times revenues. It was already grossly inflated before this premium bid.
Second, it will turn out that there is nothing MS can do with it to remotely add value equivalent to the premium they have paid.
The MS shareholders would have been better off had MS simply given them back the money. They could then have invested in Yahoo if silly enough, but at half the price.
There are some events which signal the passing of an era, and this may be one of them. What is says is that MS management has thought strategically and decided that they have to do something, this is something, so they will do it. They are not prepared to accept the company as it is, and have no realistic idea how to make it into something else, and so they waste a huge amount of money buying something useless.
In future, we will look back on this as the beginning of the end of Microsoft.
Do not by the way think Google is crashing because of the competition from MS. Google is crashing because it was in a bubble which has now burst. What we are seeing is the entrance from stage left of the ghost of Benjamin Graham and old fashioned deeply conventional value investing. A prospect to send a chill down the spine of anyone who is long tech, whether its Yahoo, MS, Google or Apple.
I sort of agree with the main thrust of your argument (I don’t know anything about the specifics of the Yahoo deal). But I disagree that there’s no value to be seen in tech. Maybe the web is overvalued, but I think that Microsoft and Apple are good valuable investments because they both produce tangible products that require long built-up expertise to make.
I don’t see how Microsoft is going to digest this infrastructure. Are they going to waste time and money converting Yahoo’s PHP/BSD/Linux infrastructure to .NET and Windows? If they do, it’s going to be a drag on further growth of this part of their business. If they don’t, it’ll be a major blow to Microsoft’s campaign against open source and be a validation by Microsoft itself that PHP is a better choice over ASP for large scalable web architecture, and BSD is better than Windows. And they won’t be able to integrate with their MSN stuff. Not to mention, everyone who worked in the MSN division of Microsoft is probably feeling a bit betrayed by this move.
I don’t think the business/marketing people who probably decided to do this really thought about the technical implications and how it could affect Microsoft developer’s perception of Windows and .NET.
This attempted acquisition, while it comes as no surprise since MS has making intimations about a Yahoo acquisition for a long time now, is very fascinating, on technical, strategic, and market levels.
Technical:
Yahoo runs on, AFAIK, a combination of BSD, Red Hat Linux (and Yahoo has support contracts from RH), and Oracle “Unbreakable” Linux (the RH clone, and Yahoo has support contracts with Oracle). Yahoo’s back end data crunching, search, and distributed code is mostly C++ compiled and highly optimized to run on their *nix cluster server farms. Their front end apps are mostly PHP. It will interesting to see if MS keeps that infrastructure stack, or tries to migrate it all over to Windows/.Net stack (an endeavor that would be massively expensive and time consuming), or totally replaces Yahoo search with MSN search, or whatever.
Regardless, at least in the short term, MS becomes a huge user of BSD, Linux, and PHP. Ironic, heh?
Strategic:
Yahoo is currently a paying customer of both Red Hat and Oracle (the aforementioned support contracts). MS, by acquiring Yahoo, immediately becomes a paying customer of both Red Hat and Oracle, two of their arch rivals! Funny!
Will MS continue this? Will they cease their support contracts ASAP? Does having a paying Linux support contract with both Red Hat and Oracle weaken their patent claims against Linux?
Will MS swallow the big expense of doing a big conversion of Yahoo *nix/C++/PHP infrastructure over to Windows/.Net?
And assuming they try that big conversion, do they want to risk losing many current Yahoo users due to technical glitches? MS is used to getting away with putting out stuff that doesn’t work well (Vista), and not lose customers because OS migration is very non-trivial. But Web search/online apps migration is trivial. I have a Yahoo email account, as well as a Gmail account. It would be completely trivial for me to stop using Yahoo, and migrate (send) my Yahoo emails and notes over to Google. Thus, in a big migration (or integration), MS can’t afford even the slightest misstep. MS is not used to that kind of performance scrutiny, or that level of risk.
The implications are fascinating.
Market:
Yahoo has been losing money for a few years. Their fortunes have sank has Google’s have risen. MSN has never made money, and struggles to compete with Google.
The $44 Billion question is, can the combination of two losers compete with one winner?
How does Ballmer justify to stockholders spending $44 billion on a shrinking business that’s been losing money for a while, and combining it with MSN, which has never made money? How does he monetize it / profit from it / deliver ROI?
Surely, most of the purchase will be financed (MS’s current cash reserves are 20-something billion). Does this further shrink MS’s cash reserves? Plus it adds debt. Long story short, does this weaken MS financially?
As for doom sayers and people worried about monopoly or more MS anti-trust – I’ll tell you, I’m not in the least bit worried. As a user, I can drop usage of Yahoo in a second. And I’ve never used MSN (it’s a POS). MS won’t be able to lock people in, and MS has never shown that it executes particularly well in the Web space.
Plus, I just think it’s funny that the acquisition will immediately make MS a big user of BSD, Linux, and PHP, and they will be a paying customer both Red Hat and Oracle.
There is nothing to worry about, folks.
I’m not weighing into this, it’s not my area but I enjoyed reading your post about what may or may not happen, fascinating.
There’s only one thing that I dispute: that Yahoo! has been losing money for several years. The more accurate statement is that they’ve not been nearly as outrageously profitable and growing as fast as Google, while they’ve actually made money in this market, as opposed to Microsoft.
All your other points, great fodder, and I’m pondering the whole mess from inside the belly of the beast that’s intended to become inside the belly of the beast
This may truly shake out how portable stuff at Yahoo! really is, and whether or not Microsoft can figure out how to integrate everything that’s so dissimilar in so many ways.
In this area (Redmond, Bellevue, Seattle area) it seems “All roads lead to Microsoft” and most of the people I’m currently working with have worked at Microsoft before, and it seems they’re possibly boomeranging as well (one former Yahoo! manager that previously worked at Microsoft left Yahoo! to go back and work at Microsoft Research while I’ve worked under contract at Yahoo!) and this seems to be a recurring pattern in this area in the field. After all, they’re the biggest single employer outside of Boeing (and if you’re in that relevant field, almost all roads lead to Boeing Field or one of their plants).
A big thing is there’s a HUGE difference in what I’ve seen between Microsoft’s and Yahoo!’s culture. The one thing they’ve got in common is the dress code (if it doesn’t get you arrested for indecent exposure, everything else is optional, including shoes) but Yahoo! (At least where I’m at) seems more team-oriented, and Microsoft is ultra-competitive, one against another, based on my observations from interviewing there in the past and knowing a lot of people that work there.
I agree that it’s fascinating that Microsoft would go as far as trying to acquire Yahoo, but from where I am both are not on my radar, so I’ll refrain from making any predictions on what a possible buyout would mean to me and others.
I think the biggest difference between Microsoft and Google is that the latter isn’t married to a single operating system and its own applications. I can see Google being a place where you can use the OS and applications you’re most comfortable with as long as it doesn’t hinder your ability to work and personal productivity rate.
This means you’ll probably get to have a choice between GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and (as a last resort for a developer) Windows. Unless you’re in a research department Microsoft will never give you that freedom of choice because they have an OS and office suite monopoly to protect.
I haven’t used Yahoo for years, the last time I did was during the days Altavista was also still a very popular search engine. The fact that Yahoo has never seemed very willing to adapt their applications to GNU/Linux has also put me off trying to use any of their more recently developed or acquired services.
As a last note I don’t see what kind of added value buying Yahoo has for Microsoft excepting the scenario that they’re willing to transform themselves into a service organisation that will use whatever are the most appropriate OS and tools for the task at hand, kind of like IBM, HP and Sun are doing (a recent supercomputer Sun built runs GNU/Linux and not their own Solaris).
Microsoft’s past behaviour doesn’t speak for the latter scenario, though. So I’ll watch from the sidelines what the outcome of a buyout will be if it really comes that far. That’s a fascinating thing to watch, indeed!
Edited 2008-02-02 00:12 UTC
I am glad I started using my gmail account more. If this goes through I will almost certainly get rid of my yahoo account. Ever since I left Windows behind I have been trying to avoid MS tech.
Yeah thats such a great reason to stop using yahoo mail *rolling eyes*
i dropt my hotmail account the same day microsoft bought it and im going to do the same thing this time
Edited 2008-02-02 01:33 UTC
Well good for you. I just like to have a reason before making dumb decisions like that.
Don’t trust them
anyone know if there is a new ballmer video out yet? i expect to see him jumping up and down yelling “consumers, advertisers and publishers”
I don’t understand where all the negative comments are coming from. That this buy out is somehow going to be bad for everyone and for OSS projects? Get real.
Microsoft is not going to just suddenly swoop in and eliminate all OSS from Yahoo or get rid of all Yahoo services. There is a reason they are considering the purchase of Yahoo, probably because Yahoo has something to offer. The OSS projects that Yahoo uses are in no danger. After all it is free software and anyone can modify the code any way they like right? And because the source code is available the project will never die. That’s what we keep hearing in the comments on OSAlert so now why all of the sudden is there a change of heart? I’ll tell you why, because its Microsoft and jumping on the F-Microsoft band wagon is so much fun!
Personally I think its a good deal. Yahoo is known for its games and IM and a few other of their sites. I really can’t see why there is so much fuss over this.
Well, as a user of Zimbra I was happy when Yahoo bought it because it meant that a company was investing dollars into a product that I use. I figured this meant that the product would improve.
The product is mostly Open Source, so it will continue no matter what, however, since Zimbra is a direct competitor to Exchange I really have trouble seeing MS invest money into improving this product.
They don’t want me to use this product. They don’t want me to work with the source and continue to make it better. They want me to purchase Exchange.
That (and other similar items, like Yahoo and PHP) are why many of us do not like this merger. MS has much different motivations that Yahoo. Things will change, and not for the better IMHO, if this buy-out happens.
Now, if MS were a “normal” company, I would expect them to take assets that they could not use (such as Zimbra) and sell them off after the takeover to realize some cash. This would be OK. However, given past experience I would expect MS not to do this, but instead to do everything they can to make sure the the project dies.
I find it really hypocritical that Gates is now saying, after he has made his billions, that companies need to practice a different form of capitalism. I also find it hypocritical that Gates says this, but it appears MS and Ballmer do not listen and are continuing on with business as usual.
Maybe I am wrong, and MS has changed. Somehow I doubt it.
I saw this ages ago…It was logical when you think of it. Still, I don’t think it would hurt Google. In fact, it would turn me off even more from visiting yahoo.com especially if they put msn stickers everywhere or if it becomes another msn.com (clone).
Edited 2008-02-01 23:37 UTC
i wonder if they are going to drop shockwave flash and use silverligt on everything ?
MS is seriously overpaying for this. $46B, for a failing ex-bubble company? Ballmer is running that joint into the ground.
$46 Billion is too much. And I think that sum is going to rise. Yahoo will hem and haw over it for awhile.
And I think Google will make intimations over making a higher bid (but not actually make a bid that high, because they’re smarter than that), just to inflate Yahoo’s stock price, and make MS pay more. That would be funny.
That would be so great. Bidding war between Google and MS for Yahoo, a-la ebay-style. I wouldn’t be surprised if Yahoo is in cahoots with Google just to get them to bid the offer up.
Let’s really see how much cash MS has in it’s coffers. Ballmer is egomaniacal *!@% that “won’t take no” for an answer. I’m anxious to see what the whining little brat does with this. If this plays out the way I’m thinking it will, I firmly believe we’ve about seen the end of Steve Ballmer at the head of Microsoft.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy…..
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
This is an exactly correct account of what the deal means in business and financial terms, and why it is a sign of end times for MS. There is no power on earth that can save the shareholders of a management team that has decided that a massive program of acquisition is the solution to their strategic problem.
Acquisitions of this sort almost always take place in an atmosphere of hysteria incited by consultants and investment bankers. Anyone thinking rationally and doing realistic appraisal once the thing gets rolling is excluded from discussion. Most people see this and go along to get along.
At the end of the process you have the punishment of the innocent and the reward of the bystanders. The process brings out the worst in everyone, from those who indulge their credulity, those who don’t believe in it but pretend they do, those who cynically position themselves to do well after the crash. It is an eye opener. And should much hang for you on whether the company in the grip of this thing does well or badly, a frightening one.
The psychology of it means that the team is always driven to an acquisition which is large enough to threaten the company if it goes wrong. You can see your and your family’s financial security evaporate in the course of a year, in a sort of gust of mass hysteria.
A CEO who embarked on one of these ruinous episodes was asked a couple of years later what had happened. The stock had cratered, the company been refinanced, huge layoffs etc. He is said to have stared vacantly at the wall and said something like, yeah, well, it was a crazy time. He of course left with very generous severance….