[amitagrawal]

A division that is bleeding cash doesn't mean that it should be sold off or closed down.

Sometimes, products that don't make money or even make losses are part of a bigger strategy.

Look at Google, no one knows if YouTube is still profitable but it has positioned Google as the leader in online video and will no doubt help their social efforts.

Innovative things have happened from online video - online lectures, talks, short films and creation of internet stars wouldn't have happened faster without the massive reach of YouTube.

Bing is positioning itself in a way that when Google does something stupid (looks highly improbable right now) then Microsoft can be at the right place at the right time.

One of the more important things is a user's trust. Yahoo! & Microsoft are very notorious at abruptly closing down their services and so it becomes difficult to trust their products even if they're a notch ahead in terms of features than their close competitors. Another sale would hurt that trust, no doubt.