Microhoo? - Microsoft Attempts to acquire Yahoo for $44.6 Billion

Published on the 3rd of February, 2008

If you have been living under a technological rock for the last day and a bit you might have missed the fact that Microsoft is attempting to buy-out yahoo for $44.6 Billion.

There are several hurdles that both parties must get over before this happens. Firstly Yahoo must agree to the deal, already there are rumours of a counter offer by News Corp as well as a rising price for Yahoo shares. Secondly the deal would have to be approved by both the US and EU antitrust regulators.

We are interested to see how this deal will not only unfold but also how Microsoft would handle owning two of the largest networks that have so heavily competed against each other for such a long period of time. When you think of it from a network point, it becomes greatly complicated, two instant messenger applications, two web based email applications, and two search engines essentially it would be two versions of Microsoft competing with each other to see which one survives.

Whilst many have labelled this buyout as a means to compete with Google we see it as more of ability for Microsoft to bolster its growing advertising portfolio, a direction that Google to has been heading in recent times.

One aspect of this buyout that is a little worrying for us is the track record Microsoft has of mishandling changes such as the Hotmail, MSN live move that all but folded and the fact that Microsoft has a continuing reliance on purchasing established properties instead of innovating, which as we are all aware is where Google’s strength is and the reason they have become the number one competitor in every niche they have set their target on.

If we had a job at MSN or Yahoo right about now we would probably be a little worried.

TechCrunch has a good round up of what should stay and what should go
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/02/microsoft-yahoo-what-will-stay-and-what-will-go/

What do you think of the Microsoft – Yahoo deal?