The big news roiling the online publishing? Microsoft’s attempt to take over Yahoo!, the latest move in the software giant’s ongoing battle with search engine leader Google.
Let’s talk about it. What would the deal mean for the online news business? For online entrepreneurs? For the economy?
[Sorry — It looks like Twiigs.com, the company that hosts the poll, has eaten the results a couple times due to some server issues it’s had over the weekend. So please do vote again if you see the input form below (which means that your old vote was among those eaten.]
About Robert Niles
Microsoft knows what it’s doing or it wouldn’t have offered such a large premium offer. Yahoo will probably take it because there is no way they could get there on their own in the near future.
I think the customers will lose out because when it comes to technology and culture, Microsoft and Yahoo are far apart as can be.
When Microsoft bought Hotmail it was the same situation. Microsoft migrated an open source company to Windows and reliability and features went down before it started to creep slowly back up.
We will see a lot of good Yahoo people leave and customers flock from properties yahoo has when it’s official and the migration to a new system or new msn/yahoo serice begins.
Good news is we might see those talented Yahoo engineers make new online properties and all those customers moving around will cause other companies to improve their offerings to try and catch them as they leave.
I’m particularly said for the Yahoo property flickr.com. I would hate to see it go the way of Hotmail.
I don’t think its a good move. Their cultures are wide apart. Integrating two big internet giants itself is a big problem. This merger seems to be hitting the online world in a big way.
You might want to cast your vote here
http://www.criticat.com/should-yahoo-get-acquired-microsoft
Former Knight-Ridder online exec Ken Doctor analyzed the deal from the perspective of Yahoo’s newspaper partners over at PaidContent.
NO…
In the difference is the beauty….
please…
let be every body different and no all part of a monopoly…..
Hopefully…microsoft stays microsof..and yahoo yahoo…