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Google And Microsoft Cross Swords Over Yahoo!

watzinaneihm writes "In a blog post Google has called Yahoo/Microsoft merger bad for the future of the internet. It is worried about the number of email and IM accounts this merged entity would control. Microsoft has countered with the argument that Google is actually the big bully in this instance, with most of the search market already tied up. The New York Times, in the meantime, has accused Google of a Microsoft fixation."

11 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Competition by caution+live+frogs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I love how Microsoft's take on the merger is that it will create more competition. Why is it that any time a big company swallows a smaller one, we're told that having fewer players in the field will increase competition? Do people actually buy that line of bull? Someone get these guys a dictionary.

  2. Re:Microsoft fixation? by somersault · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe they just have nice people at Google who have noticed that Microsoft is ruining the world of computing and that we could do with competition and/or replacement in several areas.

    --
    which is totally what she said
  3. Convicted monoply abuser much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So Google voice a legitimate worry about Microsoft, a company convicted of abusing its monopoly status in one market to dominate other markets, buying a company that would give them a large portion of a market and they are the bad guys in this? Lets be honest what Google is saying is the first thing that came to the minds of everyone in IT who are not on the Microsoft payroll. We all know how Microsoft works and we can all hazard a guess at what their aims are in attempting to purchase Yahoo. It is doubtful the good of the internet and consumers are particularly high on their list of priorities.

  4. Re:In fear of getting utterly cut up... by jez9999 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Screw whether anyone has a monopoly in the search market; Google frankly deserve that monopoly (not exactly at Windows levels, though; only 75%) because they're THE BEST SEARCH ENGINE.

    Now, if Google bought out Yahoo instead, that would be likely to lead a a lot of positive things:
    - Some degree of maintenance of the Yahoo brand (MS would obliterate it)
    - Promotion of backend opensource architecture (MS would enforce MS products)
    - Less likelihood of services being charged for (MS would ruthlessly monetize all Yahoo services as much as possible)

    Frankly, I just hate Microsoft's whole money-making diversity-killing business ethos, and you have to realise that a MS buyout of Yahoo would be a pretty terrible thing. :-(

  5. Re:Microsoft fixation? by jez9999 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mods: what is funny about the parent comment?

  6. You are forgetting something. by AltGrendel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When it's Godzilla vs Godzilla, Tokyo gets trashed either way.

    --
    The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination

    - Douglas Adams

  7. Re:Microsoft fixation? by somersault · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wondered that too. Even better is that you've been modded as funny. I reckon someone's riding the ganja train

    --
    which is totally what she said
  8. Re:Microsoft fixation? by antek9 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I guess Ballmer just got mod points at the right time.

    --
    A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
    Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
  9. Re:Microsoft fixation? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Informative

    . However this was a long time ago and they did not really have the market dominance they have today. You kids! Haven't you ever heard of MS-DOS? MS-DOS was the dominant operating system for PCs in the 1980s. Contrary to popular belief among people who are either too young to remember or were too computer illiterate in the 1980s to remember, Microsoft did not build its monopoly on Windows. The Microsoft juggernaut built its multi-billion dollar empire not on Windows, but on MS-DOS. Now you kids get off my lawn!
  10. Re:Microsoft fixation? by dhavleak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Microsoft has a google fixation? Or envy complex??

    MS woke up late to the internet. Once they woke up, their attempts at gaining a foothold were more or less unsuccessful. The offer on Yahoo is just them realizing that their web strategy needs a course correction pronto. They've built a good search engine (live.com) and ad-platform, but they can't monetize it right now because nobody goes there. Acquiring Yahoo is one of they ways to solve that problem. Yahoo has other assets that will tie in well with a software+services strategy.

    It's really that simple. MS realizes that its business model is under threat, and it's making adjustments before the pain is felt rather than after. No fixation, no envy -- just business as usual.

  11. Re:Microsoft fixation? by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It's funny because it presumes that Google is any less a greedy, sleazy corporation than MS. May I remind you that this is the same Google that scours its Chinese search engine of naughty terms like "democracy" just so it can make a few extra bucks?

    The only "do no evil" that Google cares about is "do no evil to the stockholders and profits."

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.