Forum Moderators: open
In an alternative to a full acquisition, Microsoft would have taken control of Yahoo's search business, delivering the company better rates for advertisements tied to its search results than Yahoo's current Panama advertising system, the source said.
Microsoft would have also paid $8 billion to take a 16 percent stake in Yahoo, which would have valued the company's stock at $35 a share, the source said.
Talks between the two companies broke down after Yahoo entered into an advertising agreement with Google Inc. Microsoft is still open to discussing its proposal despite Yahoo's agreement with Google, the source said.
Yahoo had no immediate comment.
Reuters [news.yahoo.com]
I'd hate to be a Y! Shareholder now
msn have made a serious business blunder here, Yahoo is the ONLY target internet property that can give msn a respectable search engine with a chunk of market share at the same time. MSN should have put up the money Yahoo wanted and closed the deal - end of.
Whilst msn may have paid over more than they wanted to at the time, yahoo ads under the control of google will imo completly burry msn live search in the graveyard - msn have missed a serious trick here!
Once msn reflect on this they will need to eat a large slice of humble pie and get back to Yahoo with what they want to close the deal.
Meanwhile, If i were Yahoo i would make them pay even more now!
Now that Microsoft has an extra 1 billion not allocated to their arguably strange Yahoo! obsession, perhaps it would be wise and a good time for them to tuck away that money to earn some interest.
Using that interest, they could fund some truly exceptional "added value" capabilities for application in Live.Com over the next 6-12 months and simply spend it as an ad campaign at the other side of development to help the public understand why they should "love to go live".
After they are indeed "live" with their reinvented site, if they were to give away 1 million dollars a week for a year, if done properly, they would gain market share for a year that would cost them far less than 10% of what they are proposing to spend on Yahoo! and engrain the "live" brand into customer's minds as well as get an opportunity to prove they are indeed better (presuming their development work product was) than their rival.
With all those added eyeballs, they might just recoup their campaign from people actually wanting to advertise on Live's click system.
Then again, my cynical side says that perhaps this is simply a problem with the pronunciation of the "Live" at Microsoft. Somebody at Microsoft had better make sure that there is no miscommunication on the site's name being "live" as in "active, current, exciting and relevant", as opposed to "live" as in "we are just trying to 'live' on our annual budget".
It is the way I might approach the problem, of course, what do I know. ;-)
hiring smartest engineers and develop better search engine
Most of them are already hired by Google, some of which left Microsoft to get better work environment. So long as Google's shares are sky high it is pretty much impossible to tempt them out.
As for new engineers of that caliber than it is hard to find them - search engine work of this scale is a very niche market that few get their toes in, most got burned and do something else for living.
As for new engineers of that caliber than it is hard to find them - search engine work of this scale is a very niche market that few get their toes in, most got burned and do something else for living.
Gigablast
I have always been impressed by what happens over there. Certainly better than 'Live'.
And I would bet a whole lot cheaper than Y!
Google already have the platform, web service, word doc, spread sheet, gear, office suit, Google Engine, Open Social ... (Adsense, DoubleClick) and the support of thousand and thousand of developers and businesses. These are the preparation to launch the OS (allow other software to run on their platform and support of other companies services.)
How much time longer until Google roll out the OS? My bet is very soon. (with in a couple years). The forseen future of MS will not be very bright especially like they act right now. MS need to be more decisive and be bold. (Need more friends not trying to make more enemy)
MS can not be too greedy and let Yahoo go!
Definitely a biggest mistake that they will regret later!
They need to open eyes wider to see that Google is about put up the Web Operating System and pushing Window into the corner and still MS can not get their ass together.Google already have the platform, web service, word doc, spread sheet, gear, office suit, Google Engine, Open Social ... (Adsense, DoubleClick) and the support of thousand and thousand of developers and businesses. These are the preparation to launch the OS (allow other software to run on their platform and support of other companies services.)
Good luck on that one.
For starters, many people do not trust putting their personal files (which an OS encompasses) online. Secondly, millions of people around the world have extensive know-how and have been habbitualized using Windows so I doubt a new OS will make people switch. Thirdly, most of the things Google offers is extremely basic (word doc, spread sheet, office suite), I doubt it will make any impact. Ever heard of Openoffice? It's free and it has many features as Office, or WordPerfect? These tools have as many features, if not more than MS Office, why haven't any of them even sucked a small % out of the Office marketshare? It's simple because of the reasons I pointed out above.
Lastly, the only thing Google is ever going to be good at is Adwords/Search and general Web 2.0 apps which everyone is impressed by, but won't ever really utilize in a real business infrastructure.
As far as I see it, Google is going to have such a hard time tapping into the Microsoft dominate products (office, windows), just as hard as how Microsoft is trying to tap into Google money making products (Adwords, Search)
First
For starters, many people do not trust putting their personal files (which an OS encompasses) online.
Secondly, millions of people around the world have extensive know-how and have been habbitualized using Windows so I doubt a new OS will make people switch.
Thirdly, most of the things Google offers is extremely basic (word doc, spread sheet, office suite), I doubt it will make any impact.
Lastly, the only thing Google is ever going to be good at is Adwords/Search and general Web 2.0 apps which everyone is impressed by, but won't ever really utilize in a real business infrastructure.
Google recently partner with SalesForce is to access more powerful business services and infrastructure. google definitely have good intention on this one.
For the adoption of businesses, I think it will happen. The reason I'm saying it is because I just watched a video about the google's conference. And it surprise me that google already pick up over 150,000 developers. This is very incredable when you talking about google platform still in its early stage.
For all these, MS definitely have a good reason to worry. One more thing I want to point out is MS need to make money on all of its products like Word, Excel, Power Point ... while google does not because they make money on online ads (adsense & adword).
This mean google can very much give these services for free and MS is the one that paying the cost.
GigablastI have always been impressed by what happens over there. Certainly better than 'Live'.
Sorry, but live.com is miles ahead of gigablast. While I do like to check them out once in a while GigaBlasts index just isn't even up to par against live.com's
Heck, as of this week for many verticles Live.com's index surpassed that of Google's. Google went penalty crazy and it shows that they don't have that right.
;)
