Microsoft/Yahoo! Merger a Good Idea? 186
NorbMan writes "Last month there was speculation about Microsoft's interest in joining forces with Yahoo! to battle Google. Today, a Merrill Lynch analyst recommended a Yahoo! takeover by Microsoft. From the article: "A Yahoo/MSN-Microsoft combination would have garnered approximately 41% share in the US of search queries [in April] versus Google with 44%.""
Very bad idea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Very bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft merging with Yahoo! is like me merging with pizza. It ends up with a slightly larger me.
Re:Very bad idea (Score:5, Funny)
While you may feel larger and bigger temporarily, after merging with pizza... after a few hours, the pizza exits with a foul smell, and you're left longing for another merger. True growth can NEVER be achieved by mergers. You need to Grow Up to understand that.
Re:Very bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell that to GE. Admittedly, they seem to do the merger thing better than almost anyone, but mergers, when done correctly, can indeed lead to organic growth. Big company acquires smaller one in a niche industry. Big company then pours its resources and expertise into this promising new area and grows that business in a way it never could have otherwise.
Certainly, Microsoft/Yahoo wouldn't be such a case. And frankly, having one player with 44% of the search ma
Re:Very bad idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Huh? Duoploy? I assume you mean Microsoft and Google? Are you suggesting that having just two companies competing against each other for market share has no advantages compared to a monopoly? And they will be competing, chairs and all. Even just two companies competing against each other to produce the best product is infinitely better than one that has full power and no desire to innovate. Look at Intel/AMD.
The only problem is if they work together to control the market and then share each others profits, but I cannot see that happening.
Re:Very bad idea (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, that's what TS said.
No, the point TS was making is simply that for any given market, more competitors > fewer competitors. Therefore any way you slice it, this proposed merger would be better for Microsoft/Google than the search market in which they compete.
Intel and AMD have not unt
Re:Very bad idea (Score:2)
Re:Very bad idea (Score:2)
So non, no barrier...
Ebay, Craigslist, these have huge barriers.
Re:Very bad idea (Score:2)
People can install alternative media player, they don't because they don't see the point, and rightly so. If people want to compete with Microsoft they can do it with innovative products. For exemple itune is concurrencing WMP because it is worth installing over...
There are two kind of people, Gee
Re:Very bad idea (Score:2)
The fact that there is a monopoly doesn't change anything.
If you wanted to start a new online auction service you'd have the problem that any customer will prefer ebay to your service since it has more buyers and sellers
Re:Very bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
See the stagnation of Home Depot / Lowes for an example of what else can go wrong. Two entrenched players does not make a competitive market.
Re:Very bad idea (Score:2)
Not so fast, Lone Starr! (Score:2)
I'm not quite sure about that... remember Pizza the Hutt [wikipedia.org]?
Re:Not so fast, Lone Starr! (Score:2)
Re:Very bad idea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Very bad idea (Score:2)
But seriously do ML ever look at the implications outside of the USA? It might bring them closer in the USA, but for the rest of the world it's one fly for google to swat instead of two.
shouldn't that be Microhoo! ??? (Score:2)
anyway, it would get a whole bunch of yahoos! in one place
Re:Very bad idea (Score:3, Funny)
Why do analysts bother anymore? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why do analysts bother anymore? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why do analysts bother anymore? (Score:2)
Re:Why do analysts bother anymore? (Score:2)
Re:Why do analysts bother anymore? (Score:2)
Not really... Conservative is usually used as they antonym for liberal in the political use of the word. As in "Conservatives want to stay the course in Iraq while liberals want to pull out now". I've at least never heard it used as the antonym for the economical use of the word (as in a term for laissez faire capitalism [economist.com]). And I really hope such a use of the word conservative in tha
Re:Why do analysts bother anymore? (Score:2)
Re:Why do analysts bother anymore? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why do analysts bother anymore? (Score:2)
As bad as the HP - Compaq merger... (Score:5, Insightful)
The combined HPaq is still below Dell, although prior to the merger, the combn. was much bigger.
Re:As bad as the HP - Compaq merger... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:As bad as the HP - Compaq merger... (Score:3, Funny)
I don't know if that statistic is accurate. Let's all google it and check...
Re:As bad as the HP - Compaq merger... (Score:2)
Re:As bad as the HP - Compaq merger... (Score:5, Insightful)
Search, on the other hand, is a very fungible resource with practically no switching cost.
Re:As bad as the HP - Compaq merger... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As bad as the HP - Compaq merger... (Score:2)
Why didn't AOL use the Netscape engine for IE?
Re:As bad as the HP - Compaq merger... (Score:2)
Re:As bad as the HP - Compaq merger... (Score:2)
It's got to suck for Google, their biggest userbase and biggest moneymaker is their service that is the absolute easiest to switch away from. At least MSN and Yahoo! have a way of locking in their customers (I'm not saying this sucks in general, I don't agree wi
Don't think so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is not numbers we are talking here, is not even efficiency. IT's TRUST.
Re:Don't think so... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Don't think so... (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't see the slightest of business reasons to merge. Where are you going to get any synergy or economies of scale? Microsoft is way too big already (for its own good, much less the rest of us). They should be thinking about spin-offs, not acquisitions.
Re:Don't think so... (Score:2)
The Geek who thinks he represents 20% of Yahoo's core market is living in Fantasyland.
Re:Don't think so... (Score:2)
Re:Don't think so... (Score:2)
Why Yahoo (Score:2)
With $40b in the bank, why not just buy Google and be done with it :)
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Because google will evaporate if MS buys them (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, remember when AOL bought Netscape? Something like 40% of their workforce quit the next day. If MS buys Google, the google brain trust (which is were all the value is) hits the door immediately.
The Sun - Netscape - AOL alliance? (Score:2)
Sounds vaguely familiar - Just change a few terms:
Sun = Microsoft
Netscape = Google
AOL = Yahoo
Re:Because google will evaporate if MS buys them (Score:2)
GJC
Re:Why Yahoo (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why Yahoo (Score:4, Interesting)
Hardly. Remember the story just a couple of days ago about which operating system and browser different companies' employees use? Google employees mostly use Windows! [andrewhitchcock.org] (Insert huge disclaimer about the unreliability of these stats here). Most of Google's software is aimed at Windows users. Native Linux support often comes much later.
As for writing 'everything in Python'? Python is a great language but I doubt if all that much of their code is written Python. A lot of their work is C/C++/Java/Javascript/Ajax/etc...
I know that on the Python homepage it says:
"Python has been an important part of Google since the beginning, and remains so as the system grows and evolves. "
-- Peter Norvig, Google
I would actually be interested to know what products (if any) they have that are powered mostly or entirely by Python. Does anyone know?
Re:Why Yahoo (Score:2)
Google, Python, Guido (Score:2)
I googled...
I guess you mean this article [slashdot.org]?
Thanks for the information - I wasn't aware of that until just now. I guess that there will be something in the comments on that article about what Google plans to do / have done with Python.
Re:Google, Python, Guido (Score:2)
What Google employees use (Score:2)
To throw in some numbers from my site: Googlers coming to it with Linux: 9, with Windows: 2.
Too small a sample size, I know. But it was the same tendency towards Linux last month: Linux: 11, Windows: 1.
Re:Why Yahoo (Score:2)
A lot of Google's software, like Google Earth and Picasa, was bought from other companies, not originally developed by Google. They've ported both to Linux, and Google Earth to Mac OS X.
Python is a great language but I doubt if all that much of their code is written Python. A lot of their work is C/C++/Java/Javascript/Ajax/etc...
JavaScript (including AJAX, which as someone else pointed out is
Re:Why Yahoo (Score:2)
Re:Why Yahoo (Score:2)
Alternative search engines (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you tried finding a good alternative to any of them?
Most smaller engines are powered by either yahoo or gooogle.
Re:Alternative search engines (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Alternative search engines (Score:2)
More Centralization of market power? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yep that's it _, we want to allow more centralization of market power.
Up to the shareholders ? (Score:4, Insightful)
This monopoly of commercial operating systems for personal computers, and monopoly of commercial word processors for personal computers, is proving somewhat a millstone round the neck of Microsoft. Are they about to sell off these businesses so that they can move on ? Games consoles, search services, etc.
I expect if the price was right, IBM would take Windows and/or Word off their hands. It's only money.
Makes no sense from a platform point of view (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Makes no sense from a platform point of view (Score:5, Insightful)
Bonehead Business Logic (Score:5, Insightful)
The technology under the hood is totally irrelevant from a business profitability point of view. Hotmail did not run on Windows at first either. Over time, Microsoft ported it over. ... It might take five years, but who cares?
I can smell the money burning when I hear stupid shit like that. The arrogance is stunning. Have you seen the contradiction in your thinking from the above parsing yet?
Who cares? The customer cares, you idiots! They are not going to hang around for five years worth of buggy service. That's Microsoft, though, their precious marketing image is always more important to them than actual service or .... the customer. Yahoo appropriately stands for "You Always Have Other Options."
Re:Bonehead Business Logic (Score:2)
They will and they have. That's what made Microsoft what it is today.
Genius! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh...
Re:Genius! (Score:2)
I don't know, but I'm sure some marketing genius will come up with the answer and express it in a multi-line spam footer and have it appear on every other email that arrives in my inbox.
------------
The all-new My! Live! Microsoft! Yahoo!
Bringing your online world together. Personalize your homepage. One place for your
news, search, mail, and more
Register online now!
Yeah, you Yahoo/MSN/Hotmail us
Er, for a moment maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
They'd have 41% for about 10 seconds until users began migrating. There's no way Yahoo could fit comfortably into the MS spectrum of products. The real stickiness for Yahoo isn't search, it's webmail and the other services that get people using it as a portal. They search at Yahoo because its already loaded up in their browser. None of those services are something that MS wants to maintain -- there's way too much friction with MS's existing products. So they either kill it all off or force users toward Live et al, which is not what those users wanted, not the least reason being MS has a negative reputation in this space.
Poisoning all of Yahoo's services doesn't gain you any marketshare in search. Maybe a few percent as collateral damage, but nothing like what's being predicted here.
Only about search? (Score:4, Informative)
What happens when Microsoft gets its hands on Yahoo? How long before this great site stops working properly on anything but IE? Can people just switch to Google and find this kind of service? Does anybody do this anywhere near as well as Yahoo?
For once, the analysts are right (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:For once, the analysts are right (Score:2)
I dunno... To put an anology on this, it would be like China invading India so they could install a puppet government in India to fight against Russia when India was already at war with Russia.
It really doesn't make much sense other than to make an even bigger over extended Indo-China nation to fight Russia especially when the Indian's aren't going to be loyal to their new Chinese rulers.
And secondly, all the resources and effort spent on
Why do they assume (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why do they assume (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why do they assume (Score:2)
why would users need to "switch"? If 41% use MSN or Yahoo search, the combined company has 41%.
Yes it's a great idea. (Score:5, Funny)
Re-coding would be expensive (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, perhaps combining the two services wouldn't result in the combined marketshare? I use the search.yahoo.com interface on occasions to get a second opinion to go with Google - surely various other people use various sites in this way. If you turn two sets of results into one, you get one slice of this pie, instead of two. And will the shiny new merged services have every single feature the two previous ones did? I think not, as the most likely course of action will be "throw the worse technology away, add a few features to the better one, and call it a merger". So, you'll lose everyone relying on features X, Y, and Z who now have no reason to use your service.
God Damned Suits (Score:2, Interesting)
Optimistic retention numbers (Score:5, Interesting)
This assumes that the merger doesn't cause users to run away. Consider both Yahoo's and MS's recent efforts to revamp their website: both caused drops is marketshare.
The only company gaining serious traction in search is Ask.
Smart money says pay for a little guy with upward mobility. If MS were smart (and it isn't) they'd go after Ask. Merrill Lynch is just brainlessly applying old merger principles to new economies. It's not helpful.
In the computer business, smart money is on growth, not marketshare.
Ask sucks... (Score:2)
Ask may be growing their market share, but it's only by basically buying it.
It's like Xbox. It sold because basically because MS was putting a $100 bill into every box.
If you think Xbox is a big success, buy into Ask. If you think in old fashioned ways like profit and return on investment, you'd do well to move on.
Re:Ask sucks... (Score:3, Interesting)
2. I'm not necessarily sold on Ask. I just suspect that for return on value, you'd get more out of ask than you would Yahoo, because Yahoo appears to have extended their brand as far as possible.
3. If anything, I'd offer the argument that MS should get out of the search business altogether. Focus on what you do well, and trim experiments that fail. I think we'll all agree that MSN/Live is never going to overtake Google, and will p
Ask and MS... (Score:2)
As to mixing personal and financial, I'm not sure whether to say "I'm not" or "I'd be a fool not to". Depends on how you think of it
The the people who took them over and took them public were the same kind of people who ran pets.com and such. They're there to try to make the company look successful, rather than actually build a strong company. They're concerned about the stock price, and less about the actual value of the company. If that appeals to market timers (such as yours
Creepy. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Creepy. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Creepy. (Score:2)
We have always been at war with Eurasia.
And at least Google tells the Chinese that they're being censored.
You think that somehow makes it OK?
(Actually, Google tells us that they're telling the Chinese they're being censored. That's not exactly how it looks to the Chinese users.)
Re:Creepy. (Score:2)
Your homework assignment is to read "1984" by Orwell.
Re:Creepy. (Score:2)
If you know what Big Brother is, I wouldn't have to. Now run along.
MSN and Yahoo search engines? (Score:2, Funny)
This should be blocked by the FTC! (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would Microsoft want to elimenate google? Well, for starters: it's a big, high profile, highly visible company... which just happens to support Open Source
Sum of the Parts can be less than the Total ... (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems this advice was given in desperation, since the goal should be to enhance the whole. That is, just becoming bigger does not assure retention of markets. Moreover, misfits can destroy existing value. Despite the currently available cash horde at Microsoft's disposal if these units do
Why? For marketing. (Score:2)
Until Vista comes out and proves to be something that solves their issues of worms, security, and spam zombies I think thier resources are best suited on what they already have (fix Windows, Outlook, IE, etc.). And if Vista doesn't, well they will need to still thier problems.
Since Microsoft is primarily a manufacturer
I dunno about this... (Score:2, Funny)
Re. the naming: Back when IBM-acquiring-Apple rumors used to circulate back in the 80's, the joke was this: What do you call the merger between IBM and Apple? IBM.
Re:I dunno about this... (Score:2)
Boohoo (Score:2)
I shall answer this question with another question (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I shall answer this question with another quest (Score:2)
Whatever happens, we'll lose some free services. (Score:2)
Re:Whatever happens, we'll lose some free services (Score:2)
This does not make sense (Score:2)
Re:Merger would be (doubleplus)Good for America (T (Score:2)
I wonder why the name reminds me of Frankenstein.
Re:Merger would be (doubleplus)Good for America (T (Score:2)
Re:takeover = losing customers? (Score:2)
Re:This might be the best thing for Google EVAR!!! (Score:2)
I would question why you would think that Yahoo is a better search engine than Google. That has not been my (and also coincidently most other people's) experience...