Murdoch - 1:29 pm on May 19, 2008 (gmt 0)

20 years from now we may look back and go, "Damn, Microsoft got a deal of a lifetime"

20 years from now is a long, long time.

Considering that Microsoft is essentially buying traffic, and that they already have no idea how to monetize their own traffic, I would be hard pressed to say that they would have the luxury of a 20 year trial period after spending nearly 15% of their market value. They would have to show a major turnaround in less than 3 years in order to keep their own stockholders from walking out on them.

MS needs to really look at their own management and start making changes there, not at Yahoo. Ballmer has really dropped the ball on nearly every aspect of their recent development and marketing within the last year. Vista, HD-DVD, even the X-Box 360 and their "red ring of death" shows that MS is more inclined to "get a product out there" than to actually work on a project and refine it. At this point, if MS acquires Yahoo, everyone will be expecting the same sort of endgame with it.

MS needs to repair their own brand first. Other brands can wait until later. Yahoo isn't going anywhere.