Is Microsoft just Screwing with Yahoo's Mind?

The Narrative Fallacy writes "This week Cringely offers up a speculative piece asserting that Microsoft might not really care if its bid to buy Yahoo succeeds or not — Bill Gates just wants to disrupt Yahoo and poach the company's employees. 'Microsoft's offer for Yahoo has thrown that company and several others into a tizzy. Yahoo can't be getting much work done, that's for sure ... Redmond's real goal may be simply to poach people from Yahoo, and this deal could help them do just that.' Cringley says there is plenty of precedent for Microsoft's behavior — Microsoft's bids for Borland and for Intuit back in the 1990s sent both companies into a tailspin. 'A failed Microsoft bid, even one involving a termination fee, could lead to horrific results for the company. Remember that Yahoo is staggering here while Intuit was at the top of its market and its game.'"

Comments

Re:Who

[Anonymous Coward]

Who are Intuit?

A small tribe near the Arctic Circle.

Re:Who

[Anonymous Coward]

The QuickBooks guys. But ten seconds of Google could have told you that.

You Know You're In Trouble When...

[Anonymous Coward]

You know your business plan is in trouble when columnists start making 'this plan is so crazy it might just work' type articles.

Micro$oft Exploder - Tenacious Gates

[bobmarleypeople]

(Sing to the tune of Master Exploder by Tenacious D)

Ahhhhh, ahhhhhh, ahhhhhhh, ahhhhhh, ahh ahhh ahhh ahhh
ahh ahh ahh ahhhh AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH YEAH!!

I do not need, (he does not need)
The Yahoo Bid (the yahoo bid)
Our Company is freakin, (freakin)
POWERFUL!
Aaaaaah yeah!

Arghhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
[Yahoo explodes]
Sorry
I did not mean, (he did not mean)
To screw your mind (to screw your mind)
But that stuff happens to us,
All the time!

Now take a look (take a look)
In to heaven? (In to heaven)
It's coming soon, WINDOWS SEVEEEEEENNNNNNNN!

AAAH! ArghhhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Lyrics copyright to bobmarleypeople. w00t!

Re:Fixes

[tomhudson]

If only Microsoft found so much energy and effort to fix it's own products first!

You mean Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt aren't Microsofts' 3 main products?

With SCO possibly going private, welcome to FUD 3.11.

Cringley's an idiot

[kabdib]

Cringley's an idiot. There are far cheaper ways to do this. BillG could stand on the sidewalk in front of Yahoo and hand out hire-on-bonus checks if all that MS wanted was employees, and MS would have been far, far ahead, stock-price-wise.

Re:Cringley's an idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

And Frodo could have hopped on the back of a freakin' Eagle, flown the 2 hour trip in to Mount Doom, and dunked the ring and been home in time for dinner.

But where's the adventure in that?

Re:Cringley's an idiot

[martin_henry]

And Frodo could have hopped on the back of a freakin' Eagle, flown the 2 hour trip in to Mount Doom, and dunked the ring and been home in time for dinner.

But where's the adventure in that?
No homoerotic overtones?

Re:Who

[Warll]

Odd, according to Google it only took 0.12 seconds.

Results 1 - 10 of about 12,000,000 for Intuit [definition]. (0.12 seconds)

Messing with their minds

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be just too cool.

On the other hand, the ARE similar.

[Futurepower(R)]

"Yahoo doesn't really seem like a good match for Microsoft."

Yes, but they are a bit similar: Microsoft has proven, over many years, that it does not know how to run a search engine. Yahoo has proven, over many years, that...