Microsoft, Yahoo Finalize Search Agreement

Joe Quimby writes "Microsoft and Yahoo have finalized and executed their Web-search agreement after five months of deliberation, the companies announced Friday. Microsoft and Yahoo reached a revenue-sharing agreement in July to combine their search businesses. Under the 10-year agreement, Yahoo's Web search would be powered by Bing and Yahoo would retain most ad revenue from its site."

Comments

Re:10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[hairyfeet]

Actually I think MSFT has brilliantly pulled the wool over everyone's eyes with the whole Yahoo Search deal. While I agree with you wholeheartedly that MSFT WILL end up buying Yahoo I do NOT believe it is about search at all, and they are (quite brilliantly) getting everyone to focus on search because even with both combined they will get a much smaller piece of the pie than Google, thus making it less likely to get the regulators screaming.

So what IS it about, you ask? Two words: Web Mail. Last I checked Yahoo was THE #1 Web Mail provider in the USA, and many Asian countries Yahoo Mail is also #1 or a close #2. This will give MSFT tons of data to mine, more ways to push MSFT technology into the cloud and score more customers (Edit Documents sent to you through Yahoo Mail with our new Office Live!) and when combined with the numbers from Yahoo and Live Messenger the deal will give MSFT probably more persistent daily eyeballs than even Google, when the services are added together.

Ultimately I believe Yahoo will be bought by MSFT, and with everyone focused on search there won't be nearly as big a stink as if they let it be known that Mail and Messenger were their real goals, which would give them #1 status as Web Mail provider, and probably #1 on combined instant messaging. So I wouldn't make fun of MSFT too much of they manage to pull this off. It shows that after the Vista debacle they are starting to think long term and are trying to map out a long term strategy to map themselves out a serious chunk of the cloud. If they do manage to get everyone focused on search and get Yahoo acquired without major regulator hassle I would have to give them credit for a move well played. Hell I would say it is a move almost worthy of Darth Gates himself.