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February 01, 2008
Shifting of the Internet Titans: Microsoft and Yahoo! Who’s next?
This morning I woke up to the news on twitter about Microsoft’s offer to purchase Yahoo! for US$44.6 Billion. The news broke on twitter before I received email updates from WSJ and Forbes.
The timing for Microsoft to make a play for Yahoo made sense to me. When was the last time anyone heard about layoffs at Yahoo!? And what does US$ 44 billion mean to Microsoft? News Corp. might be another company interested in Yahoo! Both Comcast and AT&T are also be potential suitors for Yahoo! but I don’t think they will make a move. And what about Google if they could get past anti-trust issues?
Looks like another shift of the titans is underway. Sometimes these kinds of shifts are subtle; other times they are only as subtle as waiting for tectonic plates to shift. An acquisition by Microsoft would provide an exit for the founding Yahoo! team and everyone from every company they have acquired and who still had options waiting to vest. Humm..could be a good move for the Silicon Valley local economy.
In the event this transaction happens, I wonder how long it will be before another great Internet brand just disappears. AltaVista is gone, Netscape is gone, AOL is probably going to disappear and morp into something called "Platform-A". So who’s next? eBay?
One thing I’ve learned over the years is to "Never under estimate Microsoft...". Microsoft seems to be one of the companies that when others have written it off, it just bounces back and has always been able to re-invent itself.
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Tags: Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, AOL, Comcast, AT&T, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on February 1, 2008 11:00 AM | Permalink
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Comments
You tweeted "GOOG will jump in?" 12 hours ago.
I have to say: my very first thought when I heard the news was just that. Maybe to just be a spoiler ... yank M$'s chain.
But then I realized it's a no-win situation: can you imagine a successful bid by google that wouldn't result in a massive blow-back?
I mean ... even if they just take YHOO's search capabilities ... I don't see folk feeling perky about that sort of concentration.
*Disclosure: after more than a decade as a Gates booster I have been almost rabidly anti-M$ since 1) Win95 and 2) FUD/Hallowe'en papers*
Posted by: Ben Tremblay at February 1, 2008 07:52 PM
As I was perusing the comments about this merger in several blogs this morning, I was surprised at how many people were negative on Microsoft. However, I see Microsoft as more akin to Exxon and IBM than I do to AOL or AT&T. Yes, Microsoft makes mistakes, but they have continuously demonstrated their ability to recover from their mistakes, to eventually get things right, and to be a major player in new markets when they emerge - this despite (true) accusations of being outmoded, as well as opposition from various governments. Whether or not this deal goes through, I suspect that Microsoft will continue to be the company that we love to hate for some time to come.
Posted by: Ontario Emperor at February 1, 2008 05:13 PM
I am very interested to see how this will all play out. I remember the early days of Yahoo, when they seemed like scrappy little guys with lots of moxie. It would be weird to see them get eaten up by Microsoft. But, after borging up so many different start-ups, it seems karmic that they would get absorbed by the biggest borgs of all.
Posted by: Drew Beatty at February 1, 2008 12:36 PM
I don't hold out a lot of hope for this particular acquisition. A leopard can't change its spots into stripes by eating a zebra. MS makes money by selling overpriced bloatware apps that run on Windows. Almost everything it does has its root in that Windows-uber-alles mentality. Every large technology-centric company eventually runs afoul of this problem. It becomes shackled to the strategy that originally made it successful. Buying a passe' web company won't fix that.
Posted by: Joe Cascio at February 1, 2008 12:29 PM
I think the interesting thing is whether are we seeing a merger of big vanillas in a world that's seeking mint chocolate chip.
Big works. It's profitable. But it's never surprising, and in an attention fragmented world, will Big Vanilla again become a comfortable home, or will people continue to live in a fashion/fad based existance?
Time will tell.
Posted by: Whitney Hoffman at February 1, 2008 12:24 PM
Thanks Dave for the heads up. Just make the correction. :)
Posted by: Jeff Pulver at February 1, 2008 12:24 PM
Just a quick note, Jeff: It was never "Alta-Vista" with a hyphen, but "AltaVista" in that annoying 1999 mixed-case manner of too many Internet companies. I drove past their building hundreds of times, so I remember the logo. :-)
Posted by: Dave Taylor at February 1, 2008 12:16 PM