Death knell for Yahoo?
Microsoft has offered US$44.6 billion to buy Yahoo, the one-time web search leader. Yahoo, as of November 2006, was still the second most popular search engine behind Google. The acquisition, if completed, would give Microsoft access to all of Yahoo’s search technology, advertising base and popular services such as Flickr, Del.icio.us, 360° and Yahoo Messenger.
The implications of such an acquisition are huge. By taking Yahoo out of the equation, the only two major players left in online search and advertisement would be Google and Microsoft. If one of these giants fell, the survivor would monopolize the entire field. And we all know how “well” monopolies treat their customers, especially in regards to Microsoft. Remember how awful Internet Explorer was before Firefox came along? Remember Vista and the disaster it has become since there are no viable competitors out there? That’s monopoly, and it’s not just a board game.
That aside, it is strange that Microsoft even considers buying Yahoo at all. While it would gain significant advances from Yahoo’s web search technology, Microsoft would also be wasting quite a fair bit of money buying online services which directly compete with its own services. Take Flickr, Del.icio.us, 360° and Yahoo Messenger for example. Microsoft already provides competing services such as Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Favorites, Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live Messenger. Would it then decide to shut down one or more of these competing services to save operating costs? Will the acquisition even go ahead? Looks like time will tell.
