[danielha]

I was just casually talking about this with an early ex-Yahoo yesterday. We were just pondering the possibilities for Yahoo in 2008. Holy shit -- what a coincidence.

He said this: A Microsoft deal is unlikely because (when he was there) all the Yahoos hated Microsoft. If an acquisition happens, it'd be hostile and the core guys will jump ship.

I nodded in agreement. But then this happens.

[bkrausz]

As a current Yahoo I'd have to disagree, from what I've seen in my department (and the departments in my building), I don't think the company is particularly hostile to Microsoft. Plus, the stock price is so low that I think a lot of Yahoos would welcome a big change, if for nothing else then to boost their portfolio.

At the very least I'd be interested to see how Microsoft could integrate such a huge company properly. I had discussed the idea 6 months ago when the rumor began to surface, the big question (if it happens) is how the two cultures and systems would merge...I think it would take years before they would actually operate as one company.

[alaskamiller]

It's simple. Half of you will all be fired and Yahoo will merge with MSN to create a monstrosity web division. The overlap in web products will create 3 tiers of service, the windows-ized integrated Live products (Live Mail, Live Search), the consumer centric Yahoo products (Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Search), and the pro-sumer products (Inktomi Search, Flickr, Delicious). This will be so confusing and stupid that after 2 or 3 years of Google eating their lunch they're fire the rest of the Yahoo staff and shutter off the Yahoo branded products in favor of the Live products.

But also, let's not kid ourselves, Microsoft could give two shits about Flickr. What they really want is Yahoo/Overture/Panama or whatever. That's the expected growth and cash cow that makes this deal possible.

[bkrausz]

A little harsh, no?

You forget that Yahoo has over 120 properties, what about things like Yahoo Autos, Real Estate, Shopping, Finance, etc? There's significant overlap with what MS offers, yet Yahoo is clearly kicking their asses in many of these. I highly doubt MS would kill off the more-popular site/name for their own, especially if it could give competition a chance to jump in as the new #1.

Also, things like Flickr and Delicious could do very good things to MS's perceived image in future generations, so there's more here than just cash.

[alaskamiller]

Why does Yahoo have over 120 properties and 14,000 people but only make 660m in net profits? Microsoft has already declared that this merger will create a 1 billion operating efficiency. Guess where that's going to come from?

And Yahoo might have more popular destination sites but Microsoft has the lock on operating system. MSN/Live is seen as a cloud computing services for the _future_, Microsoft would rather saving those than the multiple Yahoo turds. How's Brickhouse doing? They pumping out hits yet? How about 360? Mash? Pipes? What about those landing pages for products? That whole group is gone.

Most of the hardcore people from Flickr, ie. those whining separate login people, will be jumping ship the second this deal is inked. Instead you'll just end up with a shell of a service but again, Microsoft could care less. They'll just slap it on to Windows Pictures like they slapped Hotmail onto Windows Mail. And the masses will gobble it up because to them it doesn't matter.

If anything, this will be great for Windows 7 if it ever comes out. On your computer is Microsoft, on the web it will be Microsoft apps with Yahoo names and the products will actually not suck as bad. What Yahoo also needs to do is to properly tie in all its features and properties to formulate a social network. They have every single parts required but just lack the skeleton to bind it all together. Hmm... What company does Microsoft have an interest in that's like a social network... Hmm...

EDIT: As an addendum to this, I just read Gruber's opinion on the merger and he agrees with my premise. Microsoft culture will pounce Yahoo culture. Yahoo's products (web1.0/2.0 lamp stacks) will be naturally converted to Microsoft technology (yay windows 2000!) because at the end of the day the Borg can't stop. So if you have a job at Yahoo it's best to polish up your resume and if you're a Yahoo user be ready to get a Windows Live account. The name might be Yahoo but the backend's going to be .NET and if it's not Flickr or Delicious then most likely you won't be able to use it.

[davidw]

I wonder if anything has changed since the days of hotmail. I recall everyone gloating over all the trouble they had trying to move that from FreeBSD to NT. IIRC, Yahoo does not use a lot of MS products on their servers... maybe I'm wrong, or maybe MS will be less insistent about pissing away lots of time transitioning to their tech?

[parenthesis]

I was just chuckling to myself about that: Yahoo being forced by MS to ditch all that 'patent-infringing' stuff on their servers for the 'superior' MS alternatives. Oh, and of course, our very own pg's offspring would become owned by his favourite company!

[DXL]

"Early this morning Goldman made an awfully timely call, putting out an analyst note at 3:56am PST suggesting that Microsoft should buy Yahoo -- only to freeze analyst coverage of Microsoft at 6:55 AM PST on the news that Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo and it is providing i-banking support" http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2008/02/01/yahoomicrosoft....

Now that's a coincidence...