AOL In Talks With Microsoft to Merge Online Divisions, Says WSJ

Ian Lamont writes "Microsoft executives are reportedly meeting with their AOL counterparts to discuss combining the two companies' online divisions. No one from either side is willing to comment, nor has the structure of the supposed deal been worked out. The original unconfirmed report comes from the Wall Street Journal (password-protected). A few months ago there was talk about AOL teaming up with Yahoo, but that never materialized." The free excerpt at the WSJ link above seems to say about as much as this Bloomberg wire report which refers to it, and the above-linked story at The Standard; this Reuters story indicates that AOL is still courting or being courted by Yahoo!, too.

Comments

The Google obsession

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Ballmer is completely fixated with trying to beat Google, if only in the very short term. Ballmer wants eyeballs and user base to be able to say:"Yes, I beat Google". Of course, in the grander scheme of things two sinking ships are still sinking and Google is only growing in market share. Further, Google has almost gotten big enough that it is bigger than the rest of the players combined so the window of opportunity to beat Google has slammed shut.

Ballmer's craziness is also reflected in their other acquisitions. Why would they buy http://www.danger.com/ which has no integration with Windows Mobile? Only to make fight with Google's Android.

MS supposedly cost $10bn to develop (depending on what sources you read) and MS was prepared to spend $40bn for Yahoo. Surely MS should be thinking of spending more on fixing their core business.

Hey Ballmer, if you want to survive then you need to be less competitor focused and more customer focused. Don't let you megalomania divert you from core business.