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Microsoft/Yahoo Merger to Take on Google?
Mz6 writes "One faction within Microsoft is promoting a bold strategy in the company's battle with Google:
Join forces with Yahoo. That would be a major departure for Microsoft, the software maker that is legendary for toiling on its own until it captures a new market. However, people familiar with the situation say that Microsoft has considered the idea of acquiring a stake in Yahoo, and that the two companies have discussed possible options over the course of the past year. Currently, talks of an equity stake in Yahoo don't appear to be active, given that Microsoft is focusing on a reorganization that it hopes will re-energize its effort to compete with Google. Two wild cards remain: Steve Ballmer, who has historically shunned large acquisitions, and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, whose support would be key to bringing the necessary Yahoo shareholders on board for a deal. Mr. Yang and others in Yahoo would be hard-pressed to sell to Microsoft, people close to the company say. However, people familiar with Microsoft say its top management remains open to a deal with Yahoo as pressure grows to perform better against Google. The increasing pressure on Microsoft -- not just from Google, but also from its own shareholders, as well as from advertisers that want an alternative to Google -- could help to justify the acquisition or some kind of business collaboration, these people say."
I guess it would focus the evil in one place.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Summary is a troll - there is no mention of a 'merger' in the article text, just cooporation
Here is the article, so you don't have to sit through the silly flash into:
A Microsoft, Yahoo Tie-Up?
MSN Veterans Want a Pact
To Bolster Web-Search Ads
And Better Challenge Google
By ROBERT A. GUTH and KEVIN J. DELANEY
May 3, 2006; Page C1
One faction within Microsoft Corp. is promoting a bold strategy in the company's battle with Google Inc: Join forces with Yahoo Inc.
That would be a major departure for Microsoft, the software maker that is legendary for toiling on its own until it captures a new market. However, people familiar with the situation say that Microsoft has considered the idea of acquiring a stake in Yahoo, and that the two companies have discussed possible options over the course of the past year.
Currently, talks of an equity stake in Yahoo don't appear to be active, given that Microsoft is focusing on a reorganization that it hopes will re-energize its effort to compete with Google, the fast-growing provider of search services and advertising.
Two wild cards remain: Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, who has historically shunned large acquisitions, and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, whose support would be key to bringing the necessary Yahoo shareholders on board for a deal. Mr. Yang and others in Yahoo would be hard-pressed to sell to Microsoft, people close to the company say.
However, people familiar with Microsoft say its top management remains open to a deal with Yahoo as pressure grows to perform better against Google.
The increasing pressure on Microsoft -- not just from Google, but also from its own shareholders, as well as from advertisers that want an alternative to Google -- could help to justify the acquisition or some kind of business collaboration, these people say.
Since 2004, Microsoft has invested heavily to better compete with Google but it has yet to boost its share of search or online advertising. At the same time, Google has released products that some industry experts say could over time eat into Microsoft's core software businesses.
Microsoft executives say that they are investing for the long haul, and that the online-search market is still nascent and has much room for growth. A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment. A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the company doesn't discuss "rumors and speculation."
In one sign that Microsoft may be serious about major acquisitions, it has hired search-industry executive Steve Berkowitz to head MSN, the Internet unit that is building the Web-search business and is leading Microsoft's charge against Google, including Web search. Mr. Berkowitz, the former chief executive of search site Ask.com, is viewed as a likely deal maker at MSN, having completed more than 40 acquisitions in his career, according to a person close to the matter. He starts May 8. Mr. Berkowitz couldn't be reached for comment.
Microsoft's recent quarterly results provided a picture of the pressure it faces from Google. On Thursday, Microsoft said the MSN unit fell into the red and its revenue declined. Those numbers show it is failing to capture the same online-advertising tail wind that is helping Google. By contrast, Google's first-quarter net income rose 60% from a year earlier to $592 million. U.S. online advertising generally rose 30% to $12.5 billion last year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau trade group and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Microsoft executives also said they will need to boost investments in online businesses in the next fiscal year to levels far higher than Wall Street had expected. That prompted an 11% selloff of Microsoft shares Friday. The stock has ticked lower this week. In 4 p.m. Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading, shares fell 1.2% to $24.01, after hitting a 52-week low during the day of $23.90.
At its core, the clash between Microsoft and Google centers on Microsoft's attempt to build up its We
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
If I remember correctly, Yahoo! search engine used Google technology.
Farewell, Yahoo! a flight of angels sing thee to thy rest!
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
A Yahoo/Microsoft Takeover of google...If this happens, then hopefully we won't have to deal with an even more annoying Google Toolbar. And not to mention the changes Google would go through, to even get to results we'll have to trudge through 3 pages of ads, and Microsoft news releases.
Ballmer:
developers..developers...
what the fuck are we going to do?
With apologies to all the Google fans out there, the Internet has changed the top search engine several times in the past and it will change it again.
Just about every Internet veteran company has now recognized Google for the threat it is and has declared an all out war against them. Basically, it's Google against everyone. In such cases, everyone usually wins. Unfortunately for Google, they should expect many more actions like IE7 having a default search bar just like FireFox, only defaulting to pointing to MSN Search.
Sorry, Google - it was fun while it lasted.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Does anyone else find it ironic that M$ is partnering with Yahoo! given the recent post concerning Yahoo's shady partnership with spyware companies, especially considering that IE's security holes are one of the reasons that spyware got so bad, so fast? A match made in heaven...
"Tu fui, ego eris" - Virgil
Yeah, they could call themselves Ya'soft - they could sell Viagra too.
RIP Yahoo.
i abandoned msn back in 1999 and started using yahoo for email & news, now it is time to dump yahoo too, hello google my new friend.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Why does Yahoo! need Microsoft? Microsoft has largely stumbled in its internet ventures, while Yahoo! has been fairly successful. I don't see what Microsoft brings to the table in this.
In this deal Yahoo will probably loose more than Microsoft will gain.
fuvoo: watch something
I would have said that Microsoft is legendary for letting the market become somewhat stable, and then buying the best product therein. Visio, Groove, (OK, maybe not SQL Server). Did MS actually make PowerPoint from scratch?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Whoa! I'm not reading that crap. Summarise it in one word.
I think from Woody Allen (cue lame off topic Woody Allen jokes):
"The lamb may lay down with the lion, but the lamb won't get much sleep at nights".
Considering MSs history of screwing its partners, Yahoo would be insane to 'partner' with MS.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I can't see this happening, precisely for this reason. Ballmer's ego wouldn't let him co-exist with Yahoo and Yang wouldn't be caught dead letting Ballmer in the building. Eventually it comes down to which one would flinch in a staring contest, but I suspect they'd both go blind before agreeing to work with the other.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
We need MS Bob 2.0 enabled for Web 2.0... that would solve all of our problems... and it would look like OSX does now.
That would be a major departure for Microsoft, the software maker that is legendary for toiling on its own until it captures a new market.
Huh? This is just plain not true.
--MarkusQ
Hundreds of witnesses have gathered at the Redmond campus of tech company Microsoft to see pigs fly, no I am not kidding you, they really are flapping their wings..... and taking off.
Even given this administration's please-bend-me-over attitude towards business, I can't imagine a deal of this sort wouldn't draw some attention from the DOJ. And with their EU counterparts already looking to drop a half-billion-Euro fine on MSFT, something like this would only encourage them to take a hard line.
Then there's the problem that MS has traditionally managed to fsck up most companies they've partnered with, so why would Yahoo willingly get themselves into that situation?
the name Microhoo.
Dunno if I buy that. See:
http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/200 5/10/microsoft_will_.html
"QDOS became MS-DOS, ForeThought became Powerpoint, SoftDesign became Microsoft Project, Vermeer became FrontPage, PlaceWare became Live Meeting, Vicinity became a key part of MapPoint, nCompass Labs became Content Management Server, Bungie Studios became Halo, HotMail, Visio, Great Plains, Groove Networks"
Or...n dows/story/0,10801,78739,00.html
m ar05/03-10GrooveQA.mspx
o soft-sybari.html
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/wi
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/021405-micr
It's not Cringley...
BEHOLD! There is a NEW troll of the internet, posting wild speculations and creating rumours! 'Ware, /.ers! He is on the loose, armed, and unknown!
"Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
I'm not sure how becoming bigger and adding inter-company politics to the already debilitating (for MSFT) itra-office politics will help them build search and advertising products that are better than Google's. In my completely naive opinion, I think each company would be better off throwing a handfull of their best people in a room and seeing what they can come up with when they can focus on technology.
Why doesn't Microsoft just buy Google if they are so worried about them. Majority share holders only hold around 12% of Google, Microsoft could easiliy buy 13% and be in control.
Acquiring InfoSpace would be a better strategy. The merger would cost less than ~$300M. With the merger MSFT would get dogpile.com, metacrawler.com, websearch.com, switchboard.com. Along with partnerships with Google, Overature (Yahoo spawn)...
Yikes ... most of Yahoo! runs on unix based servers. Many thousands of them, in fact. Imagine the chaos and ugliness that would ensue over there if Microsoft were to acquire them. They'd have to cut everything over to Windows, and it wouldn't be pretty. In fact, it would give Google an operational advantage over MicroHoo.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Microsoft joins forces with one company to screw everyone else, and after that occurs, Microsoft procedes to screw that company.
Result: lots of debree, many unhappy customers, Microsoft's version is a stagnating pool of buggy crap; but with nobody else in the game, Microsoft wins!
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
The Google fanboys will definitely disagree, but the monopoly over the search engine market is having a bad effect on Google lately.
They have become more arrogant, bought their own lobbyists and, started growing by just buying a lot of smaller companies.
I think a little healthy competition will do good to Google, just like it will do good to Microsoft (remember: IE7 exist largely because of Firefox).
Perhaps the googleplex mindshare is cognizant of
that growing dichotomy (gotta use them beeg words)
When will pure search be 10% of googles business?
Is 'Everyone' nimble enough to catch all
of the cool stuff sneaking out of googlelabs?
Is google like the internet and will route around
any blockages like Microsoft or Yahoo?
We shall see...
YHOO +10%
GOOG - no change
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Yahoo is still the best directory listing (dmoz.org is close to it). Yahoo's search has started to improve again. It has a chance to get back on top now that Google is starting to do evil. Plus Yahoo Games is the largest collection of free Internet games out there. MS will kill all of this by infusing them with some awful corporate culture and force them to use MS products. Oh Yahoo please say no to MS!
atlast, a company with a funnier name than google.
Since when does Google design operating systems? Since when does MSN operate a dominant search portal? I think it's a while before we arrive at "the crunch", so to speak.
With all the recent press about Yahoo! doing bad, sleazy things, it seems like Yahoo! and Microsoft might be a good fit.
When "Microhoo!" goes to battle against Google, it'll be a classic case of GvsE (or in this case, EvsG).
And then make MSN a part of Yahoo, not the other way around. With Microsoft's power, Yahoo could pose a more credible threat to Google, but Microsoft would have to mostly leave them alone and push them through its other products. Who knows, Microsoft might be in a good position to actually force Yahoo to clean up some of their advertising and things like that.
Need to find an alternative for my photos.
Microsoft buy out Hotmail... Mail Monopoly begins.
Microsoft Merge with Yahoo... Mail Monopoly continues.
Microsoft and Yahoo release merged Hotmail and Yahoo Mail service called:
Hot-YahooMailMonopoly
G-Mail officially launched... our only hope?
Why doesn't Microsoft focus on creating a better product and fight it out in the market place? They seem to be afraid to compete; they have to have full certainty of winning, no matter how they achieve it.
I'd like them to compete instead, so all the companies have to keep trying to improve their products and people get to choose.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
It was always my understanding that many of their pieces/parts have a non-MS lineage. For example: CPM begat MS-DOS, Mosaic begat IE, Sybase begat MS SQL, Hotmail begat... well, MS Hotmail. I've heard (unconfirmed) that their TCP/IP stack wasn't exactly home grown either.
%SUBJECT% is the real problem. Yahoo + MSN search isn't twice as good as each of those two alone. What makes Google a better search engine? That's what they have to find out--together, or each on their own. I'm constantly running queries against the Google competitors only to come back to Google to get the real answer. Not for trivial queries, but the interesting ones. I'd like to see better competitors because Google knows too much about everyone already.
"buy him out boys"
no i have not shot my gun in the air and gone 'Ahh!'
I had one Hotmail address, never used it, never gave it out to anyone, withing 1/2 hour I was getting spammed with Porn. Microsoft had to have sold it, how else would anyone else have gotten it?
If Yahoo merges with Microsoft, Yahoo mail acounts will migrate from Yahoo. AND I will do it in a second. All folks home pages that I set up, no more Yahoo anywhere. Simple Math... is decision as Microsoft just is pure evil.
Is it just me or others having ludicrous visuals of a these IT titans embroiled in a celebrity boxing match? Perhaps it's just the Chicken Littles that are embroiled.
A few days ago I installed Adobe Acrobat on a windows PC so I could RTFM.
I was rather surpised to see the "Yahoo" toolbar appear on the IE browser
next time I fired it up.
I didnt ask for it, there were no "do you to install?" questions it just appeared. And it was a pig to get rid of.
It wasn't my PC and I felt guilty about leaving it in a polluted state,
and I have come to regard anything Yahoo as pollution.
Isnt there some sort of law against this kind of stuff?
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
Why do people seem intent on pitching these companies against each other? Aren't they ALL making money? What's the matter - dividends are too small? Stock didn't ramp up 100% in 7 days? Didn't make a billion dollars overnight? These days, when people talk about a company "not growing" what they really mean is "I invested to ride the stock price rocket, damnit, not to wait and collect my share of the profits" - and I think this constant Micrsoft-killer, Google-killer kind of crap is related to that.
It seems that Steve and Bill have forgotten rules of acquisition. http://www.sjtrek.com/trek/rules/
#52: Never ask when you can take.
and
#218: Always know what you're buying.
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
Don't use the google default search box, it is crappy and you get the results you mention. Default is for n00bz. Take a few minutes and consistently learn to use their advanced search. It is just a bit more typing but a hugely improved results page.
I could just as easily use M$ homepage as Yahoo's, but I don't as a matter of choice. And M$ has passport, what would that do to Yahoo?
God spoke to me.
If this is true, this represents a huge departure from Microsoft's previous M.O.
Prior to this, they used to leverage their OS monopoly, and bundle "free" tools that would enbrace and extend standards in order to capture marketshare in new markets.
Since they're not going to be able to do that any time in the near future (ie. Vista is delayed, and even when it does ship, it's not going to be widely adopted with any speed, due to hardware requirements, different operating paradigm, and evil DRM), they have to take a different approach.
I find that very interesting. I wonder if it's true - and is this a voluntary change in tactics, or a necessary change due to reduced monopoly power?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
When you get to the click me for download stage, there is an option to uncheck install the toolbar as well. Alternatively you can choose reader for os version and then you dont have to install AUM either. Toolbars are a menace to society and should be banned. The number of users that have fsck'd their screen real estate with shitty toolbars is truly breathtaking.
... for the blue web page of death
http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/partners_msn.php
Umm....
You know what always cracks me up with these large mergers? They never specify the name of the newly formed entity in the buy/sell deal. And in this case, we'll all have front row seats to the must ludicrous combination of brands so far thought of.
Yahhoooommmmmmmmicrosoft.
Or will it be, Microsoft - where is your Yahoo today?
Anyone got any betters? Y'all see what I mean though right? Poor fucking middle management will have to come up with a name accepted by executives on both sides of this giant merger of brands. Good fuckin' luck to that. See y'all on the flipside.
Heroism according to Princeton University: the qualities of a hero or heroine; exceptional or heroic courage when facing danger (especially in battle); "he showed great heroism in battle"; "he received a medal for valor" "he posted his mind on Slashdot"
...It's a trap!
I saw it on Slashdot, it must be true!
And add a few more qualifiers.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Call it kAzoo!!!
Heard a story about a stockbroker's meeting where they all made forecasts about where the market would be in a year.
The clever veteran always took an extreme position, either that there would be a crash or that there would be a spectacular runup.
He figured that nobody would remember a middle-of-the-road forecast but that if the market did crash (or zoom up) he'd get credit for being brilliant.
I can't help but notic that the one thing not talked about in the article is technology.
Batman and the Underpants Gnomes could join with Yahoo and MSN but if the technology doesn't offer an advantage over Google then they are all wasting their time.
Ascii artist &
Given MSN, MSNBC, and various other media portal experiences from MS, MSYahoo ought to be stillborn.
I don't think MS knows how to package search.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Microsoft is very easily distracted, aren't they? A few years ago the big enemy was Linux. Now it's Google. I bet you could drive the price of shit through the roof by putting a Wired magazine in front of Bill Gates with a nice 4 page article on organic fertilizers.
A merger between MS and Yahoo! sounds like a great idea. Google's empire isn't about the search - it's about owning the desktop. (Well, of course, it's really about making money/advertising and owning the desktop is a big piece of that). Gmail with it's huge amount of free storage will expand to a virtual, transportable desktop. MS would LOVE to own the virtual desktop as well, but needs someone like Yahoo! to pull it off. A Yahoo!/MS merger would allow them to create a free, virtual email/storage/desktop model and perhaps even extend IE to mimic your desktop so you could access/edit/save files from anywhere and everywhere. That's really where Google is headed and I think a MS/Yahoo! merger would be a great alternative to that and might be a substantial leap forward for the computer industry.
They are, as you mention, present in many markets. But that doesn't mean they are making money (and it's kind of silly to say you "captured" a market if it costs you more to be there than you're making).
XBox, for example, just had it's first ever profitable quarter, but has a long way to go before it even pays back the money they invested in it, let alone give them a decend ROI. And (from the last time I looked through their annual report) I believe that to be the case for most of the other "successes" you mentioned as well.
Further, which of these were developed "in house" without partnering (or appropriating technology from) another company that had already done the groundbreaking work?
--MarkusQ
That is how MS got ahold of a browser, and a DB. of course, they "borrow" heavily from the OSS world (check the libraries). I can no longer remember the company that used to do filesystem compression, but MS stole the tech; literally. No, the parent should be modded insightful.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...am I the only one that read "Steve Balmer hysterically shunned big takeovers" in the summary?
I hope that Yahoo remembers how Sybase "profited" by their partnership with Microsoft. Microsoft got an enterprise-class RDBMS and Sybase got, well, ......
Does microsoft really have any chance to overtake google? Their shareholders sure don't seem to think so, or so the share drop indicates...
A cursory glance at msn shows me a portal, the likes of which I might have seen in the late 90s. A million different sites compacted into one, totally unintelligable.
What's sad is you can go here http://search.msn.com/ for a major improvement. How does it improvement? It looks exactly like google, that's how.
How exactly do they plan to innovate, aside from copy things that google has already done? Microsoft is dumping all this money into a "fight" with google, but do they actually have a business plan? Massive R&D without any overall direction other than "beat google" will do nothing. What are they going to do anyway? Release a version of mail that looks exactly like gmail? Release microsoft earth? Bah. Microsofts main strength when expanding into new markets lies in their ability to integrate with other microsoft products, but with the web, that's not particularly helpful.
As a stockholder, I don't want them to waste any more money that I don't think they can recoup. They are dumping billions into a business (msn) which has maybe 100 million profit a year? And no real guarantee to ever go beyond that? This mindless expansion in every direction is just going to hurt them in the long run, when the profits on windows and office can no longer cover the massive losses on *all* of their other products. I want them to make their business *profitable* and to focus on doing well in their key markets. Microsoft seems to think that they only way to defend windows, is to conquer every other market on the planet as well, which is just stupid. They can't do it, and it they thought about it they'd realize that.
Meanwhile, Apple has carefully manuevered into a position where they can take a chunk out of microsofts ass. I'm not saying they will, but if they don't it's not because the potential isn't there. I'd like to see them spend that research money on getting OS releases out faster and higher quality, so that they can deal with emerging competition. In many ways (aside from marketshare of course) microsoft is playing catch up with apple in the OS game, and that's kind of a dangerous situation now considering that apple could start selectively chewing into their market with mac clones, or an osx server release that supports some third party manufacturer's hardware.
there was time when yahoo founders had an "ms must die" poster in their office