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Google May Scrap Yahoo Deal
JagsLive points out a Reuters story which suggests that Google may walk away from its deal with Yahoo instead of accepting possible antitrust limitations from the government. The ongoing investigation of the deal by the Department of Justice has caused new concerns to be raised over whether the two companies have adequately addressed issues such as privacy and competition. From Reuters:
"'Are they more serious about walking away? Yes. Have they decided? I'm not sure,' one source told Reuters on Friday. 'Yahoo wants the deal, and they're willing to have Google sign anything at the Justice Department to have them do it.' ... Part of the impetus of Google's walking away could be Yahoo's talks with Time Warner Inc about buying the content and advertising operations of its AOL unit. Google initially struck the deal with Yahoo as a way to fend off Microsoft Corp's unsolicited bid. Yahoo and AOL are conducting due diligence to see what a combined company would look like."
While someone at Google throws a chair. How the tables have turned. Or chairs, as the case may be.
I hate printers.
$33 per share, right? And now it's at $12 or $13? Hmmm... can you say "stockholder lawsuit"?
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I don't know if it's sad. Yahoo is a dead company. Its death is entirely of its own making -- corporate greed over user experience. For me their death is well deserved, can't happen fast enough, and I will revel in schadenfreude.
That said. Your point is valid. There is nothing like enough competition in search. I find that search has never really met my expectations, and that it is doing so less and less. There has to be new ideas and new players in this market. Google is the only show in town, and Google is well and truly gamed.
However, innovation in search is not going to come from Google, Yahoo or Microsoft. Corporations are far too bureaucratic, conservative, and slow to develop new ideas. If you work in a corporation it can take you months to get approval to even start work on a new idea. No, It is going to come in the same way it happened for Google. Two guys working in their garage, with a damn good idea. These guys can pick it up and run with it, much faster than any corporation ever could.
The sad thing is that with the current credit clusterfuck there may not be funding for innovators. This is good for Google, but it's really bad for everyone else. Google seriously needs competition, it would even be good for them too, they are getting stale and a shaking up would do them a lot of good. There's been no significant innovation in search for 10 years. This is bad for everyone.