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Yahoo Bid shows Microsoft on the Ropes
Ponca City, We Love You writes "One day after the announcement of Microsoft's plan to buy Yahoo, there is an interesting piece from the NY Times analyzing the reasons behind Microsoft's bid and proposing that the bid is a tacit, and difficult, admission that Microsoft did not get its online business right and that online losses continue to mount while Google makes billions in profit. Microsoft "finds itself in a battle where improving its search algorithms and online ad software is not going to be enough," writes the Times. With the Yahoo bid Microsoft is trying to buy a big enough share of the market to be a credible alternative to Google with online advertisers. "This shows just how worried Microsoft is by Google," says David B. Yoffie. "Microsoft has faced competitive threats before, but none with the size, strength, profitability and momentum of Google.""
I still have a Yahoo! home page that I visit on a daily basis. If Microsoft buys them, I will quickly delete that bookmark and will never visit it again. I would highly doubt that I would be alone in that either. Google and Mozilla haven't alienated large groups of people (Google seems to be working on it at times) the way Microsoft have. So I don't think this is going to turn out to be such a great thing for them. Kind of like AOL. Look how valuable that looked to TW, how did that turn out?