Microsoft bids $44.6 billion for Yahoo

"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. has pounced on slumping Internet icon Yahoo Inc. with an unsolicited takeover offer of $44.6 billion in its boldest bid yet to challenge Google Inc.'s dominance of the lucrative online search and advertising markets."

Source

reply to post by mrmonsoon


There can be only one!

Its only a matter of time before they own everything.
I had a feeling Yahoo was not doing too good.

They just announce that Yahoo was laying off 1000 workers.

They have also been saying how yahoo has basicly lost the search engine war with google.

Well get ready for Yahoo brought to you by Microsoft.
I wonder what changes they will make? I still have a Yahoo account I use for a junk account when signing up for things.

I don't get it, is the deal just to bail Yahoo out or is something bigger for Microsoft here.

I mean yahoo is no doing well so what can Microsoft do to make it better.

Originally posted by Digital_Reality
reply to post by mrmonsoon

 

Its only a matter of time before they own everything.

Thats a bit heavy handed I'd say. No one has a gun to their head to use Micro$oft products, thats a choice. Certainly there will be acquisitions but as others have indicated they've lost the search engine battle.

brill

Originally posted by marg6043
I don't get it, is the deal just to bail Yahoo out or is something bigger for Microsoft here.

I mean yahoo is no doing well so what can Microsoft do to make it better.

The reason ms would want it is name recognition. That and google are the 2 big search engines. Not much more to be said really.

Originally posted by marg6043
I don't get it, is the deal just to bail Yahoo out or is something bigger for Microsoft here.

I mean yahoo is no doing well so what can Microsoft do to make it better.

They can essentially fund the crap out of Yahoo -- expect a new Yahoo! coming soon, re-done Microsoft style (complicated, confusing, user-unfriendly......)

Google while smack the crap out of Microsoft either way.

Also, I thought Yahoo was purchased by SBC? .. Or was SBC bought out by Yahoo? I know when I had Yahoo DSL, it was actually through SBC.

Anyways... Google's advertising is so easy to use (Adword, Adsense) that less and less are bothering with Yahoo... unless Microsoft cuts the cost of adverts compared to Google -- imo Google is a bit expensive.

Thanks for the input, you know I am not friendly of any of the two main searching engines, I got my own software that uses up to 14 engines to find he information I am looking for and with less bias.

I understand that Microsoft has been working very closely with the government in developing all kind of gadgets and software to keep track of the INTERNET user, I can only imagine how manipulated Yahoo will become after this take over.

Google is no better than Microsoft. In fact, I trust Microsoft more today than Google.

First of all, Microsoft is watched by tons of geeks and lawyers who each look for the slightest provocation to call MS out. Second, Microsoft is completely predictable from a business perspective.

What MS does is essentially a very well refined game for maximizing profits by investing in technologies today to directly compete against companies that you intend to buy tomorrow.

Google on the other hand is obviously a company that tries to hide its true motivations. The "Do no harm" mantra is a classic form of corporate propaganda. I heard geeks repeat that line like it was some sort of self-evident truth. I would then laugh and say that internally their motto is "Maximize profits at all costs."

Google views you as an information source (your emails, website, word documents ect.) and they provide data mining of your data. This is a frightening ability we allow them to have because it shaves down that 3 second search for an email into a simple button press. Microsoft tends to look at the computer user as a pair of eyes to be provided a service (hotmail, msdn, live!) in return for advertising.

Yahoo! on the other hand only recently (a few years) started competing with Google in the first place. Many people don't know this but Yahoo! was never their own search engine. For years they used various other search engines including Google up until a few years ago when they decided to buy AltaVista (I think) and make their own engine.

Where Yahoo! competes directly is in advertising. Advertising is really the only thing Google offers that makes any money. Everything else is the excuse they use to shove ads down our throats. It shows in the neglect that Google the company has been showing their information tools.

Want high resolution maps? Microsoft is far better than Google maps.
Want product listings? Amazon has a better product search than Google Shopping.
And on and on...

It is interesting watching Google trying to define itself for the last year or so. They are doing everything wrong a large company can do, ignoring their core services, ignoring their users, and providing more and more sugar coating on top of an idea that is bound to backfire - "All your data here."

Jon

I hope M$ will buy Yahoo! and then bankrupt or at least go in great financial troubles in many following years.

I think it makes sense for MSFT to buy yahoo. I've heard that yahoo is supposed to have some promising software in the mobile devices area. With googles recent interest in spectrum and the open source mobile stuff coming out next year, it makes sence for MSFT to use it's money and yahoo's brains to compete.

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo is planning to lay off hundreds of employees in an effort to increase its profitability, prop up its deflated stock price and narrow the focus of its sprawling Internet portal to a smaller number of crucial areasSource:NY Times - news dated January 22, 2008

That Yahoo is performing well is an error. With Google being the clear winner in the lucrative Search Engiine Market and steadily expanding into a variety of untapped niches, Yahoo has lost a considerable amount of it's market share.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is playing a desperate came of "catch up" with Google. Ironically enough, Microsoft seems to have placed a lot of it's resources in its' software divisions producing programs that Google is actually offering to the general public for free and, for a lower fee structure, to corporations. With a number of free Operating Systems, Microsoft has gambled huge resources to Vista without the expected returns. In an effort to "buy market share", in effort to compete with Google, it's a logical move for Microsoft to bid for Yahoo.