That might be part of the appeal but it is far from all or most of it. From what I see, the sort of developer that Google courts is likely to go where a) the big money is b) the "next big thing" is. They want to be part of history and be well rewarded for it.
Case in point? Observe the number of Google defections to Facebook when Facebook announced it was providing a (proprietary) API to its (proprietary) social graph and attracted investment by none other than Microsoft itself.
Some people in this thread are confused. This passage you quote in the WSJ is referring to a possible merger with Google. However the subject of the article is just about a business arrangement whereby Yahoo puts Google ads on all of its inventory. Antitrust isn't relevant here - except in the very unlikely event authorites consider the arrangement as some sort of collusion or bid rigging to jack the price of adwords up.
For Yahoo, this business arrangement would substantially improve their profitability and force Microsoft to big significantly higher. Alternatively, shareholders might be less reluctant to accept any bid if they believed Yahoo would be starting out on a new growth path. This is the general thrust of the article.
On the other hand, a merger between Google and Yahoo, which does require approval before it occurs, would however be unlikely to be given approval given Google's dominant position in key markets.
You know - the thing that bugs me most about the tech crowd is when I compare what I hear the real world's opinion of the competitive framework with what users on rags like Slashdot have to say. It is an incredibly huge gulf. It makes the tech community look hopelessly naive and biased.
I am a postgrad of competition law right now so I know quite a lot about it. Firstly, the real world doesn't believe Microsoft is any more or less evil than any other monopoly - past or present. In fact the opposite is more likely to be true. All of the conduct ultimately condemned by the courts (primarily restrictive licensing practices) were instigated by people who have since left the company. Further, Microsoft is now under close scrutiny by the US and EU authorities.
Google on the other hand is not.
One thing the shapers of modern competition law understood (yes these issues were thought about long before any of us were born) was that lasting unregulated monopolies are inevitably harmful to consumers. Google might have the right spirit of innovation and openness at the moment but one day working for Google won't be sexy anymore, an innovative culture will be harder to nurture and Google shareholders will still demand that Google returns a profit. The next best thing to innovation is infrastructural lock-in like what Microsoft (and Bell, IBM etc) have achieved. Which means the company can earn ongoing monopoly rents with minimal ongoing investment.
Best way to prevent this inevitable evil? Force the infrastructure to become a shared resource of multiple companies by making it economically less efficient for all of them not to inter-operate. If competition doesn't achieve this, the regulators will and history has shown that regulation of monopolies often leads to even worse effects than the alternative.
Slashdot Mirror
That might be part of the appeal but it is far from all or most of it. From what I see, the sort of developer that Google courts is likely to go where a) the big money is b) the "next big thing" is. They want to be part of history and be well rewarded for it.
Case in point? Observe the number of Google defections to Facebook when Facebook announced it was providing a (proprietary) API to its (proprietary) social graph and attracted investment by none other than Microsoft itself.
Some people in this thread are confused. This passage you quote in the WSJ is referring to a possible merger with Google. However the subject of the article is just about a business arrangement whereby Yahoo puts Google ads on all of its inventory. Antitrust isn't relevant here - except in the very unlikely event authorites consider the arrangement as some sort of collusion or bid rigging to jack the price of adwords up.
For Yahoo, this business arrangement would substantially improve their profitability and force Microsoft to big significantly higher. Alternatively, shareholders might be less reluctant to accept any bid if they believed Yahoo would be starting out on a new growth path. This is the general thrust of the article.
On the other hand, a merger between Google and Yahoo, which does require approval before it occurs, would however be unlikely to be given approval given Google's dominant position in key markets.
You know - the thing that bugs me most about the tech crowd is when I compare what I hear the real world's opinion of the competitive framework with what users on rags like Slashdot have to say. It is an incredibly huge gulf. It makes the tech community look hopelessly naive and biased.
I am a postgrad of competition law right now so I know quite a lot about it. Firstly, the real world doesn't believe Microsoft is any more or less evil than any other monopoly - past or present. In fact the opposite is more likely to be true. All of the conduct ultimately condemned by the courts (primarily restrictive licensing practices) were instigated by people who have since left the company. Further, Microsoft is now under close scrutiny by the US and EU authorities.
Google on the other hand is not.
One thing the shapers of modern competition law understood (yes these issues were thought about long before any of us were born) was that lasting unregulated monopolies are inevitably harmful to consumers. Google might have the right spirit of innovation and openness at the moment but one day working for Google won't be sexy anymore, an innovative culture will be harder to nurture and Google shareholders will still demand that Google returns a profit. The next best thing to innovation is infrastructural lock-in like what Microsoft (and Bell, IBM etc) have achieved. Which means the company can earn ongoing monopoly rents with minimal ongoing investment.
Best way to prevent this inevitable evil? Force the infrastructure to become a shared resource of multiple companies by making it economically less efficient for all of them not to inter-operate. If competition doesn't achieve this, the regulators will and history has shown that regulation of monopolies often leads to even worse effects than the alternative.