Comments on: Stock Market Predicting That Yahoo and MSFT Will Hook UP

By: Yossi Goldlust

Yossi Goldlust — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 23:23:58 +0000

Not going to happen. No sane business would shell out the amount of cash that Yahoo would want just to “catch up”. Acquisitions happen when one party is much bigger than the other and the other’s assets can be acquired more cheaply than somehow creating them yourself.

AOL Time Warner happened b/c TW was effectively tricked into believing the value of AOL’s assets were much higher than they really were .

By: ploosh

ploosh — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 21:36:13 +0000

Being primarily from seperate platforms (web/windows) the two would need to find a solid colaborative footing – which I would speculate to be either entertainment or “web 2.0″ based.

By: John

John — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 21:26:35 +0000

I don't see that happening. Yahoo! is getting more into content distribution. Seems like Microsoft is moving away from that when it is dissolving its MSNBC relationship with NBC.

Microsoft would only acquire Yahoo! in a desperation move IMHO.

I agree with other people's comment that Yahoo! is getting smoked internationally by Microsoft and by Google. Maybe Yahoo! will have to be bought if they cannot grow fast enough abroad.

By: John

John — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 20:41:04 +0000

At the risk of sounding like I missed the last 5 years MS's relationships with companies like Dell, Motorola, Sprint, Verizon, Samsung, Palm, etc and their integration into the fabric of Corporate America is still a huge hammer in the future of Web media not to mention the database of intentions the combined company would own.

If Yahoo! had access to those same assets would Google still be the most feared name in this landscape?

By: MikeM

MikeM — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:35:51 +0000

Gates pins Google into the deal for AOL all the while he has his eye on the real prize?

By: Glen

Glen — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:01:28 +0000

Microsoft has search traffic, especially international market share. Microsoft may be able to carve more serach traffic off for themselves with clever search links in Vista. Also, Yahoo is getting smoked by Google internationally. They need help. MSN, especially MSN messenger, gets good usage outside the US where Yahoo needs help.