November 6th, 2008
Microsoft buy a 'good idea' for Yahoo, not Microsoft
Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang’s 180-degree turnaround — via which he’s now claiming that Microsoft buying Yahoo would be a “good idea” — is topping headlines today.
Sure, it’s definitely a good idea for suffering Yahoo shareholders and those Yahoo employees who are worrying about their future employment status. But a good idea for Microsoft? I have to go with blogger Robert McLaws on this one, who has published an open letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, entitled “Mr. Ballmer, Please Do Not Bail Out Yahoo.”
Yang is so “poor, alone and sad” now that he’s claiming that he’d be all-for Microsoft buying even just Yahoo’s search business at this point. Remember back in July when Yang and the Yahoo board ridiculed Microsoft’s proposal to buy Yahoo Search, claiming that Yahoo’s paper-deal with Google made far more sense for Yahoo, since Yahoo intended to stay in the search business, not concede it?
Yang’s newfound love for Ballmer & Co. is understandable, given Google’s abandonment in the face of Department of Justice rejection, but is it believable? Hardly.
So we’re back to the same questions we were asking earlier this year. Have your views changed since then? (Mine haven’t. I think Microsoft still has reason to buy Yahoo’s search business, but buying all of Yahoo would be a disaster of Titanic proportions.)
Do you think Microsoft should buy Yahoo and/or its search business at this point? What would the Redmondians get by doing so — beyond a few more points of search share and more online properties for it to sell to advertisers?
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