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Why Microsoft Is Chasing Yahoo
latif writes "Microsoft has been chasing Yahoo for quite a while now. Most people think that it all started with Microsoft's acquisition bid for Yahoo, but this is not so. It is well-known that Microsoft and Yahoo have been negotiating since at least May of 2006, and may have been negotiating since 2003. I have done a thorough analysis utilizing information made public over the past five years and my analysis suggests that most people are completely wrong about what Microsoft wants from Yahoo."
Google was around before the Dot-com bust, and in the late 1990s was already showing itself to be a fierce competitor to Yahoo. Your knowledge of search engine history is pathetically incorrect.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Heh... Stock valuation doesn't indicate anything save what price a shareseller is willing to part with his shares over.
It doesn't, overall, indicate anything of the state of affairs within the company or it's actual overall health. They don't have the cash war-chest they used to have (they paid out dividends recently, remember...) and Vista's a flop and Office is sitting stagnant compared to it's past sales.
Not sitting as pretty in the long term as the stock price would lead you to believe it is.
The search results, even in the early days when the main Google page was still marked as beta (I remember using the beta version in 2000 when I was still at the uni), were (and still are although somewhat less glaringly now) superior to any of the established commercial operators (like Yahoo) at that time. It was clear even then that Google had an emerging franchise in an industry that was already packed with me too and also ran search companies (anyone remember HotBot, Lycos, AltaVista, etc...).
Just turn off javascript for Yahoo Mail and it switches to the "old mode".
Some stuff doesn't work - you can't flag spam as spam (you can still delete them).
But overall that's the version I've been using and it's fine for my purposes.
In fact Gmail originally did not have a "no javascript" UI - they only added that later.
Many people have predicted the doom of MS with every little new competitor and/or technology fad. One of the things that has kept MS in the game is money. Lots of money. They still make profits on their core products which support their other not-so profitable products. Frankly if MS wasn't behind things like Xbox and Zune, those brands would have folded by now. While they are not bad products, Xbox hasn't been profitable until recently and Zune has a way to go. If they were independent companies, they would have had to declare bankruptcy and disappear. (Xbox divison is still $6 billion in debt historically)
Up until now that huge cash reserve has allowed them to do things to keep them in the game. They have been able to buy out companies that may have been competitors or had key pieces of technology that they needed. If MS were to buy out Yahoo, that major advantage would be dwindled. From what I read about the merger deal, it would have been a 50/50 stock and cash deal. At the asking price of $44.6 billion, MS would need to raise $22.3 billion in cash. They have about $21 billion in cash, but MS will not be using the cash reserve. Instead they will borrow the money.
While MS will still retain cash for the future, this deal will set the company slightly in debt from an overall standpoint. While MS stock is in mostly a hold position, investors are fickle. Any future set backs might send investors into selling out. This is a risky venture for MS if it doesn't work out.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Oh,please,mr Fanboi,Vista is a turkey and you know it. The only guys that I have seen that actually like Vista either only use the machine for web surfing or who got monster dual and quad rigs tricked out with tons of RAM and the latest ATI or Nvdia monster card for DX10. Tell you what: why don't you go down to your local best Buy or Wally World,pick up the bottom of the line Vista rig(as that is what the majority of home consumers do,buy on price,which is why Dell has so many cheapy machines) and see how long you can run it before you pull your hair out.
Talk to your local computer stores,ask THEM how their sales are of Vista VS XP. I can tell you that most of us have quit carrying the thing because it ends up sitting there. When folks come to me for a new machine the LAST thing they want is Vista. And I never said this was anything other than my opinion,but that opinion is based on nearly 2 decades of selling and servicing MSFT products. How many years have YOU been selling and servicing MSFT products?
The simple fact is I never had any problem selling machines with WinME. Yes,it was buggy and you had to be really careful about what peripherals you paired it with,as a bad driver would kill it deader than dixie. But then a funny thing happened,along came XP SP2. Folks got used to everything just working and plugging anything they wanted in and having it go. You expect me to tell my customers who need a machine for SOHO work and basic web use that I need to build them a gamer rig just to get the full Vista "experience", AND while I'm at it I need to convince them to throw away most of their peripherals because MSFT boned the driver model and the manufacturers aren't going to bother with Vista drivers for 90% of their hardware? Yeah,and my business would be closed within the month. If you have Vista running smooth on your quad core with sh*tloads of RAM I say good for you. As a buddy that used to service the F4 said "If you strap giant jet engines to a brick it'll fly,but that don't make it anything more than a brick with giant jet engines".
Vista was designed for the "PC of the future" only the future isn't going where MSFT thought. It is going for lower powered,easy to carry laptops and netbooks instead of giant quad core rigs. And the gamer customers I've had are sticking with DX9 because Vista simply cuts into their hardware more than they care for. With a company the size of MSFT,inertia will keep them afloat for awhile. But the whole reason that companies like Intel and Nvidia are getting into the low powered chip market and why MSFT has such a hard on for buying Yahoo is because big and bloated simply won't fly. Why do you think they are offering XP Home instead of Vista Basic on the EEE? Because they couldn't give it away with Vista Basic,that's why. Funny that the only other time I saw this level of fanboi-ism about a MSFT OS was when the public decided WinME sucked. I gues that old saying "everything old is new again" is true,huh?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.