PageCount - 6:10 am on Feb 26, 2003 (gmt 0)

Is this perhaps not the latest twist in the familiar battle of the portals? Or an extension of it?

If Yahoo!'s forged an alliance of sorts with Overture [a current supplier], then Yahoo!'s acquisition of Inktomi and Overture's sucking in of Fast and AV would go a long way towards securing its market share.

In terms of search-driven traffic, Yahoo! seems to have, over the past few months, consolidated its second position behind Google. If Microsoft adopts the approach that it can always buy results and given 'who supplies whom', these takeovers look as though they might affect AOL most of all [to the benefit of Yahoo! and MSN]. Unless, of course, its subscription base is just so strong it can adopt Microsoft's approach.

Either way, of the major portals, Yahoo! would come out way ahead of the rest.

Unless Netscape / AOL have something going with Overture [also a partner]... that would stir things up a bit. Whichever way one looks at it, though, it appears to be a puzzle the answer of which lies somewhere outside the immediate ambit of 'a' buys 'b'.

But then that's just conjecture... something which is always fun when married to Search :).