Microsoft to buy Yahoo?

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Googles search capabilities are slipping though
the page rank abuse and the pure way its implemented mean certain things do not show up where they should do anymore

I did a search the other day for a company name (i often name check via google, rather than randomly trying extensions .com, .co.uk to see which one scores) but the first 8 links were not the company home page, they were blog posts, and shopping comparison sites for the product the company made, very poor show

granted google are pretty quick to fix this kind of thing, but it happens very regularly now, more so for the less known things I search for, i doubt it would happen if i ever typed 'microsoft' into google
MS Search is not bad by any standards, but the simple minimalism we have come to love from google needs to be present, the search results are not bad, but there not as good as google yet that's for sure

 

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I don't care what they do with Yahoo as long as they leave IM alone. I use MSN IM too because I have some friends I can't convert but it is sooooo boring compared to Yahoo IM. As for netscape, I'm glad it is mostly gone. It was an evil little sob!

 

Google & MS/Yahoo do different things with search anyway:
google searches their index of the net
MS & yahoo do this, but ms also has encarta, & yahoo has 'answers' & their directory

Advertising:
google = search ads
ms/yahoo = ads on search, ads on their portal sites, ads on messenger


We may all use google, but what does the average net user use? They cant all be using google, so theres enough of them using msn/live/yahoo to keep them all going.


Ive just looked on yahoo directory, & the front page has content linked to different parts of yahoo, an image from flickr, links to external sites, link to wikipedia, ability to leave comments
& thats just a front page story about the death of captain america

 

Well... Google have responded... sort of. The gloves aren't quite off yet, but it won't be long...

 

I don't think the Microsoft-Yahoo move is a good one... but man, that argument from Google is weeeeak.

Maybe they know something I don't... maybe they actually believe that Microsoft-Yahoo CAN succeed regardless of the fact that neither one knows how to implement search.

 

It may be which service provides a better result for us (techies), but that’s not how the rest of the world works. Perception is reality . If Yahoo/MSN can provide a service that people would rather use than Google, guess who will take a bigger percentage of the market? It’s safe to assume that many people don’t associate MS with search, but they do with Yahoo & Google. So what happens if MS version of Yahoo becomes the default homepage for consumer PC’s? It worked for IE and we know majority of users don’t change the default homepage.

It’s not that Google is going down, or that MS is taking over with this deal (if this deal even happens). It’s that MS is showing they want to fight and they believe they have a means to do it.

 

The argument does sound weak, and I'm surprised Google reacted sounding concerned. The comment "It's about preserving the underlying principles of the internet: openness and innovation" actually raises an eyebrow. Sounds like Google is already playing the field to garner support. Actually this might be a good idea

 

MSN has been the default homepage for consumer PCs for years, and they STILL can't get most users to use it.

Good! Everyone needs competition... including Google.

 

...but does MS get more people using the 'homepage' if it's Yahoo instead of MS?

 

Some tech media are reporting that this is (effectively) a hostile takeover bid for Yahoo given that they recently reported disappointing earnings. If true, then I don't see how this can succeed. I've been part of a takeover by a competitor and there's inevitibly hostility on both sides. In this case, I would think this is definitely true, as the companies appear to be very different culturally. Yahoo has built most of their infrastructure and technology on open source platforms, whereas Microsoft has a history of buying companies who use open source and migrating the code to work on their platforms. If I worked at Yahoo and believed strongly that open source was the way to go, then I can't imagine I'd want to work at Microsoft, even if Yahoo remains an independent entity. And, if they don't migrate the technology, then how does Microsoft reconcile that with their past history of continually saying that open source is not as good as their proprietary software?

Ultimately, I think this is a bad move for Microsoft, but I'll never bet against a company with that much cash available and someone as intent on beating Google as Ballmer appears to be.

 

With Gates going, I wonder if Ballmer sees the humbling of Google or, more importantly, the rise of MS at their expense as his lasting legacy.

And, let's face it, MS is presumably 'cash rich' and needs to do something with it to make all those investors happy.

And who is to say that Google won't throw in their own bid? Now, if that happened, the bidding war would really heat up...

 

I doubt it, but I could be wrong. Perhaps Microsoft thinks that Yahoo's search is better than their own (though I hope they don't think that! I'd even prefer Microsoft's search to Yahoo's search).