Holy $hi... MS buying yahoo

[GothicGothicness]

What do you guys think, will they accept the offer? it is crazy if they do. I know this is a politics thread but this is internet politics! MS will get as much traffick as google after they buy yahoo!!!

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[Corwin]

It would be just another site to cross off my list!! :)

[magerette]

I remember when Yahoo was just a little fish and had all kinds of geeky overtones--we all got our free emails there in comp school--now it's really commercial and bland, but still free. I bet if MS does buy it that could change...

[Remus]

If Microsoft doesn't buy Yahoo, google would be or already a only internet giant, if Microsoft - Yahoo merger approved - at least we got two giants battling out...

[GothicGothicness]

MS is still big on the internet, they got traffick to rival google on MSN, Live, messenger, microsoft.com, xbox live, and hotmail.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

If Microsoft doesn't buy Yahoo, google would be or already a only internet giant, if Microsoft - Yahoo merger approved - at least we got two giants battling out...

There is a total lack of a middle class, so to say, of a mezzanine.

This is something I often see in the U.S. - at least I don't receive many reports of middle-tier companies.

It's either small or gigantic - but nothing in the middle.


In an article I read a long time ago the author made the Reagan era responsible for this, politically and economically.
The author wrote that in his opinion the economic policy of the Reagan era resulted in the eroding of the middle class of companies. And the author also made Reagan responsible for the erosion of the social side of the state/government.

[Bartacus]

Always hated yahoo, so doesn't make a difference for me. The reason why I hate it, is the same reason why I'm beginning to hate google too. Toolbars getting installed when you download something, stupid extra's I never need., ...

[Remus]

Actually both Microsoft and Yahoo trailing behind Google in online advertising platform and business, while MSN, Hotmail and LiveSearch services hardly attract enough attention.

Microsoft has spent the last decade desperately scrambling to build an online business. Despite the millions -- if not billions -- of dollars thrown at its online properties, including MSN, Hotmail and LiveSearch, the company is little more than a third-tier player online.

Assuming the Microsoft-Yahoo merger goes through -- which is still a big "if" at this point -- the combined company would have roughly 18 percent market share of the search-based ad market, while Google still has 75 percent of the market, according to Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Co.

The only area where the combined company could dominate is in the market for display ads, or banner ads, where Aggarwal estimates the companies could have 30 percent market share, besting Google's 2 percent share in the market. Even there, though, analysts speculate that the combined companies' dominance could be short-lived, assuming Google's acquisition of DoubleClick wins approval.

And of course when it comes to search, neither Yahoo nor Microsoft come anywhere close to competing with Google, which has 58 percent market share for search, while Yahoo has 23 percent market share and Microsoft has a measly 10 percent market share.

Full article here:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2008/02/msft_yhoo

[GothicGothicness]

including MSN, Hotmail and LiveSearch, the company is little more than a third-tier player online.


That's simple not right. MS has aaa lot of traffick. The only thing they completely lost out on was internet video!

[Squeek]

I remember when Jerry Yang and David Filo announced they were going to quit school to turn Yahoo into a business. We were all wondering if anyone could really make any money with a Web search engine. I'd say they did alright.

Three things hurt Yahoo. The first was becoming a directory in addition to a search engine. The second was becoming a portal. The third is what's been killing them lately, and that's competition. Yahoo was always about being clearly the best way to search the Web. That was Yahoo's value, and it was put in dispute.

[magerette]

I'll tell you why HotMail failed for me--don't know what its like now, but when I got it free with one of my computers, it was totally unfiltered for spam. In one day you could get thirty or forty hardcore porn messages. It was disgusting to just read the titles in your inbox. As with all MSN srvices, you couldn't uninstall it, or MSMessenger without disabling your browser.

Yahoo has an excellent filtering system, and I've never even seen porn in my spam (Bulk Mail)folder. The version of IE you get with the Yahoo/ATT merger also makes it easier to turn off Messenger and other unused features. Firefox is still hands down better, but Yahoo is at least in the ball park for user convenience. It's the ads that ruin it for me.

[Lucky Day]

I was going to post this yesterday and I don't know why I didn't. you beat me GG.

There had been rumnours for years about this and MS has finally did it.

Back in the day most search engines were second rate Online portals like Webcrawler. For searching I switched to Metacrawler but kept Yahoo as my home page becasue it had quick links to news and hockey, but it generally got worse.

Yahoo's only revenue was banner ads and they were doing badly. Thanks to the scheme of IPO's they suddenly became a hot stock but nearly lost it all in the dot.com bust.

The final straw came when they got that new CEO (I can't remember where they got him from) and he started pushing flash banner ads, starting with the IBM ad that had geese pooping bricks.

That's when I switched to Google. Google has slowly been getting worse and thanks to the Doubleclick acquisition, they've proved that they are now officially evil. But that's another topic.

But if I had to comment on this in one phrase: MS is getting desperate. The loss of MSN.com as a legitimate online service and webpage has left them with a significant hole they've needed to fill.

That said this acquisition has to be approved by the board (re: Oracle's acquisition of Peoplesoft) and the stockholders and the Justice Department.

Also of interest in this offer, Yahoo just announced the shedding of 1000 jobs a few days before MS did this. Now, did Yahoo do this in anticipation of the MS offer (to prevent paying a higher severance package to these employees and thus collusion with MS) or did MS finally sense weakness and make the offer?

[Prime Junta]

That said this acquisition has to be approved by the board (re: Oracle's acquisition of Peoplesoft) and the stockholders and the Justice Department.

The EU might have something to say about it too. (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/01/business/regs.php) It's scuppered deals like this before, even if they were between American companies.

Some are saying that MS overpaid big time -- which may have been a really bad decision since their cash will be gone when the market does bottom out.

[Bartacus]

I'll tell you why HotMail failed for me--don't know what its like now, but when I got it free with one of my computers, it was totally unfiltered for spam. In one day you could get thirty or forty hardcore porn messages. It was disgusting to just read the titles in your inbox. As with all MSN srvices, you couldn't uninstall it, or MSMessenger without disabling your browser.

Yahoo has an excellent filtering system, and I've never even seen porn in my spam (Bulk Mail)folder. The version of IE you get with the Yahoo/ATT merger also makes it easier to turn off Messenger and other unused features. Firefox is still hands down better, but Yahoo is at least in the ball park for user convenience. It's the ads that ruin it for me.

I don't understand: your pc came with hotmail? It's just an online mailservice like gmail and yahoomail. The standard version of hotmail was free since at least 1999 and I suspect it always has. SPAM is not something that you get from your hotmailaccount, but rather where you leave your mailaddress (subscribing to fora) on the net. It's only later on spamfilters were being used by other mailservices, so don't fully count hotmail responsable for getting like 40 spam mails a day. The reason why they are partially responsable is that I suspect them of 'selling' the mailaddresses to compagnies willing to pay for them.
At any rate my hotmailaccount has never really been flooded with spam and like I already specified: I use it from 1999. (It was on school only that I could check since we didn't get an internet connection before 2001)

[Lucky Day]

The EU might have something to say about it too. (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/01/business/regs.php) It's scuppered deals like this before, even if they were between American companies.

Some are saying that MS overpaid big time -- which may have been a really bad decision since their cash will be gone when the market does bottom out.

I got the impression from the EU that they were looking to squeeze cash out of the big American company over the problem they had with Windows Media and also give their own companies a competitive edge. The same thinking I get with France's problem with the iPod.

Either way, considering France's problem with Yahoo and their Nazi Memorabilia Auction (http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/11/20/france.yahoo.02/)(although they were acquitted (http://www.out-law.com/page-5510)) I won't be surprised. Maybe the URL will be blocked in Europe without certain conditions, as in China.

[magerette]

I don't understand: your pc came with hotmail? It's just an online mailservice like gmail and yahoomail. The standard version of hotmail was free since at least 1999 and I suspect it always has. SPAM is not something that you get from your hotmailaccount, but rather where you leave your mailaddress (subscribing to fora) on the net. It's only later on spamfilters were being used by other mailservices, so don't fully count hotmail responsable for getting like 40 spam mails a day. The reason why they are partially responsable is that I suspect them of 'selling' the mailaddresses to compagnies willing to pay for them.
At any rate my hotmailaccount has never really been flooded with spam and like I already specified: I use it from 1999. (It was on school only that I could check since we didn't get an internet connection before 2001)

I'll try to explain. My pc at that time came with various internet connection options at purchase--you know 6 months free AOL, etc. I chose MSN service, and so got the hotmail account--which I never used. One day I happened to look at the account as I was cleaning up files, and there were hundreds of messages, all spam, almost all porn. I've never knowingly gone to a porn site--so who knows how they got there. Some questionable mailing list type deal accessed through IE is also my guess. My point was, Yahoo's free e-mail has always filtered them out.
Anyway, I got rid of my MSN service eventually for that and other reasons--I'm glad to hear you had a different experience with it. Could be your school connection did some spam filtering also..:)

[GothicGothicness]

I bet MS regrets they didn't buy google these days...

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I got the impression from the EU that they were looking to squeeze cash out of the big American company over the problem they had with Windows Media and also give their own companies a competitive edge.

Maybe. But oin tzhe other hand i don't get the impression that the EU wants absolutely gigantic companies with world domination - like Microsoft.

Face it: Microsoft is an american company implicitely and quietly distributing american concepts into the world - like every company does.

The only difference is that Microsoft is so much dominating everything that this simply isn't allowed in most european countries. At least not in Germany.

Whereas the U.S. doesn't have anything against market dominating companies, the European concept is that companies should not dominate a single market. It's as simple as that - and imho probably a cultural difference between both companies.

Here in germany the "Mittelstand" - the summary of all mid-size companies - are traditionally THE factor to produce the highest amount of goods and jobs.
Although the recent governments try their best to favour the big companies instead.
Here in Germany it is a strong belief that the Mittelstand is much more importanbt for economy than big companies (and small ones of course as well), because they return the best value, so to say - jobs and taxes.

I often get the impression that in the U.S. big mega-companies get a lot of freedom, and that the rich ones (both companies and individuals) pay less taxes than everyone else. Why, this is a puzzle to me - and to everyone else, assumed that this impression is right (the impression IS there, no matter whether it's right or wrong), because is is believed in the public that there should be a tjhing like progressive taxes : The more a company or an individual earns, the more taxes should be payed simply because there is more money there.
(Although recent governments tried their best to erode this, too.)

We currently have a problem in the "enrergy market" here in germany: The country is basically divided into 4 zones: 1 for every energy company.

What do they do ? They just increase the prices to squeeze the most money out of the people they can get without being called obsessed with money. They just defend themselves so much that just a fine border line between greed and economical need is maintained.

Monopolism is always good. For those who hold it.

Now, the people cry out because of the always increasing prices in this sector - so much that even the government is forced to act. The governments antitrust agency now looks into the prices demanded by the energy companies. For the first time they have to open up their calculations (they never had to do this before). And still, the public mistrusts them because of the increasing prices, and that although the companies show rational reasons for the increase (rising oil prices etc. ). But the companies act as if the falling reputation doesn't bother them at all. They just continue the increase.

Huge companies are quite suspicious in the public's minds here in Germany.

[Prime Junta]

There may be something to what you say. "What's good for General Motors is good for America" is a sentiment that, for a long time, defined the relationship between industry and government in the US. A part of this may be due to the more fragmented political landscape in Europe -- the French don't want a German company dominating a Europe-wide market, so they're willing to put some curbs on French companies in return for that, and vice versa. Now that the EU has a bit of economic muscle to flex, it's applying that to American companies as well.

[Squeek]

There may be something to what you say. "What's good for General Motors is good for America" is a sentiment that, for a long time, defined the relationship between industry and government in the US.That statement referred to the many thousands of American jobs in the automobile and automotive industries.

[Prime Junta]

But it was the CEO of General Motors who said it -- and the attitude persists. Many Americans do seem to have some sort of patriotic identification with American corporations. I think I can catch a whiff of it even here, in Lucky Day's interpretation of EU concern over Microsoft's dominant market position as simply a way to squeeze money from an American corporation.

[Squeek]

I guess that's the way it seems. But folks I know up in the Seattle area tend to think most Americans are too hard on Microsoft and should lighten up with all the suspicions and criticisms.

[Zaleukos]

I just hope that yahoo mail wont get merged with hotmail. Yahoo has been my main email provider for a decade and comes with excellent functionality in terms of filtering and storage, something I didnt experience with hotmail back when I tried it (does hotmail still delete emails that havent been archived after a certain period of time?).

[magerette]

Well, Google is apparently getting into the act:
Article on Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080204/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_yahoo)
But Google is painting a starkly different picture, asserting that Microsoft will be able to stifle innovation and leverage its dominating Windows operating system to set up personal computers so consumers are automatically steered to online services, such as e-mail and instant messaging, controlled by the world's largest software maker.

In a move that illustrates just how badly Google wants to torpedo the deal, Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt called Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang Friday to offer his help in repelling Microsoft, according to a report Sunday on The Wall Street Journal's Web site, which cited anonymous people familiar with the matter.

The assistance didn't include a counterbid, but may have included supporting other potential suitors, or a revenue guarantee in exchange for an ad partnership with Yahoo, the people said, according to the newspaper.

[Zaleukos]

I saw that yesterday, and my immediate thought was:

Wouldnt a Google-Yahoo merger be much more problematic than Yahoo-MS with respect to various anti-trust laws?

[magerette]

Google's already huge, and just acquired double-click, so it would be a very monopolistic merger. And they're already in the search engine business, so that might be a legal point of contention

However, from this news snip anyway, it doesn't seem that Google is actually in a position to outbid MS, or 'take over' Yahoo...they just don't want to compete with a MS/Yahoo conglomerate. That's the impression I'm getting anyway.

[txa1265]

Yahoo also axed their music biz today (http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9863937-36.html)...

[GothicGothicness]

Looks like Yahoo turned MS down!!! MS stocks went down because of that..... I wounder if that is the last of it......

[Prime Junta]

I very much doubt it.

[magerette]

Now they're talking about it all going hostile. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20080212/tc_pcworld/142382;_ylt=Am1dsN1KgO18lt.ZzMmL9fwj4OpF)

"As we have said previously, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!'s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal," Microsoft said in its statement.

[Remus]

"...and so Microsoft suddenly became bitter, angry, and start to forced himself upon Yahoo after the sugar words failed and gentle advances been rejected...";)

[Squeek]

Is it just me or do evil empires never seem to employ enough people with sugar-word skills?