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Yahoo!/Microsoft Execs Meet For Round Two
psychosmyth writes "Microsoft's deal to Yahoo! is apparently back on the table. Yahoo execs met again with Microsoft early this past week to re-discuss the deal that fell through earlier. 'The gathering, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, gave Microsoft its first chance to sell Yahoo on the rationale for the proposed marriage since the software maker unveiled its plans six weeks ago. Since then, Yang has been exploring different ways to ward off Microsoft. The alternatives have included possible alliances with Internet search and advertising leader Google Inc., News Corp.'s MySpace.com and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL.' Microsoft is apparently still keeping all of its options open; a hostile take-over is not out of the question."
Funny thing is I've been using Yahoo! much more since this all started but it's just the beginning of the end for old Yahoo!. It is destined to slink back into the vast dark recesses of the tubes much like Excite, Lycos, Hotbot, Web Crawler, etc., etc.. All have before it. I certainly think Microsoft will help see to that in a much quicker fashion than Yahoo! could of done on it's own.
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
Oh not again...
...Balmer threw his toys (i.e. chair) out of the cot?
I'd wear full motocross protective gear if I was Yang.
The Mothership
i hope this costs microsoft a freight train full of money, so much that it hurts microsoft and weakens them to the point that they can not buy anything else for a long long time...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
If you should merge with MS, it will be used to tear apart the Internet. For all intents and purposes, this would be the endgame. The reason is that MS would assimilate the bulk of Yahoo's customers to add to their base. From there they would then move on to block Google and Linux. Sadly, I believe that this would work for them. Obviously, MS believes the same.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"Teh caek is a lie!"
You know, that Firefox extension that is now owned by Yahoo? They might just make the extension uninstall, but a more dangerous possibility would be that they could use the auto-update features of Firefox extensions to brick installations of Firefox, as a forceful measure to get people back to IE. Question is, could they legally do something like that, or even morally?
Yahoo to Microsoft: "Put a one and two zeros in front of that or we walk!"
stuff |
I already deactivated my Flickr account. MS has enough of my money.
-- Cheers!
Oh, I love that. The simple reality is that MS would not buy Yahoo unless they believed it help them to take on what they consider their greatest threats; Google and Linux. They know that they can take out Apple on the desktop anytime they want to. But they have not been able to take out either Google or Linux. They also are taking Apple to court saying that Apple is using their mp3 player monopoly as a way to block MS.
Steve wants the bang: Micro!Soft!
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Ah, but you're missing the grand scheme, sir. The rule of the internet is only one prong of the strategy. The primary goal is the eventual take over of the World by Microsoft. This is just one small step on the corporate level. On the social level is the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. See, they're in Africa, helping those people who are becoming indebted to MS. They will buy their products and one day, fight in her armies. Yes, that is correct. We are seeing beginnings of the corporate armies and corporate rule of the World as predicted in Robert Heinlein's "Friday". Who's to stop MS? IBM, Apple, Google, and possibly SUN and Oracle (ellsion's son is already making military propaganda films See Flyboys [actually a good movie!]...).
I could go on, but I'm running out of space and the lights on my router are blinking ....they're on to me again...got to run!
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
There is very little that Microsoft has bought that didn't turn to crap and die. (Yes, I acknowledge there are some things that have done rather well, but they were already doing well before Microsoft got them and even then somehow the majority of those surviving have gotten a bit worse.)
Yahoo will always be second or third place to Google. Microsoft made their attempt with MSN. It's crap and never caught on. Yahoo and all of its things, while many are still vibrant, are generally too spammy to be useful any longer. (I can't tell you how many groups I had joined only to become flooded with unending spam even after leaving those groups!)
I simply cannot imagine with Microsoft's history of misunderstanding the internet (primarily they somehow don't get that they can't control or guide the internet in any successful way) and Yahoo's failure to maintain its dominance or communities that they can somehow put something together that will compete with Google.
Microsoft is just wasting money.
Jeez, just the threat of MS buying them is causing people to stop using the software. This isn't the first time I've had to stop using a software or service because it got changed once either the rights got sold or the company got bought out. Hearing about this makes me glad I use FOSS. Software you depend on could be altered or unsupported because of the uncertainty of business. Even if you are guaranteed support for a certain time, after that all bets are off because they don't have to renew the support. Yes you can use an earlier version, but that only works for so long on a proprietary platform unless you rely on emulation or re-implementation of an API, that's if the software developers didn't cripple it with some sort of time limit or something.
there is nothing more pathetic on this earth than the geek's misunderstanding of his significance in the mass consumer market.
I have this feeling that one of the terms of this deal will require Yahoo! to dump all its FreeBSD-based technology and migrate their entire system to Microsoft's newest Windows Server. This deal will undoubtedly create the same sort of chaos that ensued when Microsoft switched Hotmail's systems in the same manner, since there is this rule that goes something like, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Making such a large-scale migration is sure to create nothing but chaos until after completed and after all the bugs have been ironed out, and the only benefit is that Microsoft can later brag about how Yahoo!'s entire system runs on Windows. There can be no other benefit since the system evidently works fine under FreeBSD.
MS to Yahoo!: "All we want to do is eat your brains, we're not trying to be unreasonable and eat your eyes..." :P
-Aegis Runestone-
I especially like their personals ads service. I live in a metro area of about a million people and Yahoo consistently has the most women in my area and the friendliest ones. I guess thats the result of not marketing yourself as some high end match making service. They just do the basics. You are left to the details.
I imagine MS will screw all this up in some way. They probably will abandon Python and FreeBSD. Replacing Python will take years of new coding of some MS developed scripting language and abandoning FreeBSD will triple their need for servers. Each server will have 50% uptime.
"We get it! We'll take it with the lubrication, now!"
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
TFA doesn't say whether he's tried such approaches as garlic, holy water, etc. What is the appropriate ward against Microsoft, anyhow? Come to think of it, I suspect it might be the GPL: their attitude towards GPL'd software is a lot like a vampire's reaction to a cross. So if Yahoo really wants to ward off Microsoft, they should spin off some of their software into a GPL project run by a separate non-profit entity, something like the Mozilla Foundation. Microsoft will recoil in horror. (Not that Yahoo has any software the rest of us would care to see, so far as I'm aware -- but that's beside the point.)
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
Please GOD, if anyone at Yahoo! is reading this:
SELL OFF FLICKR FIRST!
It's one of the few sites I kinda like.
I'm not an MS fan, but what does Yahoo really have that MS would get through the deal. Just the mere purchase of Yahoo by MS will turn off alot of Yahoo advertisers. MS already has all the elements that Yahoo has via their "live" brand which seems to be more modern than Yahoo's search.
So what does MS really expect to gain?
It seems to me that essentially Microsoft is trying to buy their way out of what is a fundamental problem with their corporate culture. The *reason* their products are crap is they don't understand how to inspire their troops to excellence and resort to browbeating them instead. Buying out Yahoo isn't going to fix that, it'll just drag Yahoo down to their level.
I said this before but here it goes again: I hope I continue to have access to delicious bookmarks for the long run. I would be disappointed should that fall apart. Then I'd have to find another bookmark service like that. I love accessing my bookmarks from anywhere :-)