The war has begun….

[quote]
Microsoft and Yahoo! *will* work together closely on the integration process to ensure that we are thoughtful about the questions we ask and the decisions we make. As we move forward, we’ll look carefully at how to bring our assets together to create the greatest value for customers, employees, and shareholders.

During this transition period, I urge you to stay focused on your commitments and team goals.
[/quote]

As if it’s already happening.

calling that an “internal email” it was more like a press release..

MSFT is lame.. I hope Yang and co. don’t sell out..

Microsoft Corp. announced that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billio…

@43 - “Yahoo is not a search engine..” They seem to think they are in their PR, and so does MS. I too remember when they were a directory, and I used it often, but they kicked that to the curb long ago. Now I fight with Y!Groups and MyYahoo, but I rarely win. Mash is ridiculously bad. Meanwhile, iGoogle is simple and it works. “Google’s email sucks..” Hardly. Superior spam filters, capacity, speed, UI and free POP make Gmail converts very happy ’round these parts. “I use YIM more than AIM..” There’s your problem right there.

It will revitalise Microsoft, and help it transition as an organisation (this is about much more than the MSFT stock price!).

Microsoft has some great marketing skills in the aQuantive camp, and seems to have avoided destroying aQuantive or looking all its people. It does not have great relationship with consumers though. This is Yahoo!’s strength, as is its now very high-quality search and content matching algorithms.

Yahoo! is proving that it cannot handle the operational side as well as it should, and here it may have something to learn from Microsoft.

I think the combined group would make a very potent contribution to both advertiser choice and experience and to keeping Microsoft relevant to the world today and tomorrow.

Digital Marketing blog - YaSoft! or MicroHoo! ?

Yahoo is not a search engine, they never were! When they started they were a guide. And except for that little mistake they made buying Inktomi back in the hey day they really were more of content aggregater than data minors. I like their their sites better, their whole look and feel is better. Google’s email sucks, their maps are cool but MSFT’s are cooler. People seem to have fallen in love with Google but they have only executed well on their core competency everything else has been a lackluster failure or result of an acquisition.

So you may argue that Google is the king but I say let them have search. The more people use search the more they realize its worthless. As an advertiser on their network I get mediocre results and a lot of clickfraud and ultimately that is going to be their downfall. They are great for reaching people when someone is looking for you but for display ads they suck.

Most people i talk to have similar experiences with AdSense.

IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED:

HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

FROM: WILLIAM HENRY GATES III
DEAR SIR / MADAM,

I AM WILLIAM HENRY GATES III, AMERICAN ENTREPRENEUR, SOFTWARE EXECUTIVE, PHILANTHROPIST AND CURRENTLY SERVING AS CHAIRMAN OF SOFTWARE COMPANY MICROSOFT. THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE YOU BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT MET IN PERSON NOR BY CORRESPONDENCE. I CAME TO KNOW OF YOU IN MY SEARCH FOR A RELIABLE AND REPUTABLE PERSON TO HANDLE A VERY CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS TRANSACTION, WHICH INVOLVES THE TRANSFER OF A HUGE SUM OF MONEY TO AN ACCOUNT REQUIRING UTMOST CONFIDENCE.

I AM WRITING YOU IN ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE PRIMARILY TO SEEK YOUR ASSISTANCE IN ACQUIRING THE AMERICAN PUBLIC CORPORATION YAHOO, A GLOBAL INTERNET SERVICES COMPANY. IT PROVIDES A RANGE OF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES INCLUDING A WEB PORTAL, A SEARCH ENGINE, YAHOO MAIL, NEWS, AND POSTING. MY PARTNERS AND I SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE IN COMPLETING A TRANSACTION BEGUN BY MY COMPANY, AN AMERICAN MULTINATIONAL COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION WITH 79,000 EMPLOYEES IN 102 COUNTRIES AND GLOBAL ANNUAL REVENUE OF US $51.12 BILLION AS OF 2007.

IN 1996, MY COMPANY, THEN THE PERSONAL COMPUTER MARKET LEADER IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SOUGHT TO WORK WITH THE GOOD OFFICES OF THE SUPREME COURT TO MAINTAIN AND INCREASE REVENUE SOURCES BY FIXING VARIOUS ANTI-TRUST CASES. THE ISSUE IN QUESTION WAS HOW EASY OR HARD IT WAS FOR AMERICA ONLINE USERS TO DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR ONTO A WINDOWS PC. ALTHOUGH WE DID NOT SEE IT AT THE TIME, THIS INSTIGATED THE BEGINNING OF OUR DOWNFALL.

DESPITE THE COURT FINDING THAT THE REVISED PROPOSED FINAL JUDGMENT WAS IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST, WITHIN TWELVE SHORT YEARS MY COMPANY WAS LEFT FLOUNDERING BY A SERIES OF UNSUCCESSFUL VENTURES: THE FAILURE TO LAUNCH LONGHORN, THE ZUNE, WINDOWS VISTA AND MANY, MANY MORE.

DUE TO SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS DEALINGS THROUGHOUT THE 1990S MY COMPANY IS WORTH FOUR-HUNDRED-AND-ONE BILLION U.S. DOLLARS ($401,000,000,000).

MY BITTEREST ENEMY, GOOGLE, NOW REMAINS IN CONTROL OF THE INTERNET’S LUCRATIVE ADVERTISING BANNER BUSINESS.

MY COMPANY IS CALLING FOR YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE IN FUNDING THE TAKEOVER OF YAHOO! TO ACQUIRE THE ASSETS OF THE ENTIRE INTERNET COMPANY IN ORDER SO THAT WE MAY REGAIN OUR MARKET LEADING POSITION IN BOTH ADVERTISING AND ONLINE SEARCH.

I WOULD BESEECH YOU TO ALLOW US TO TRANSFER A SUM EQUALLING $44 BILLION TO YOUR ACCOUNT TO AID IN THIS IMPORTANT VENTURE. THE NASDAQ STOCK MARKET OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL FUNCTION AS OUR TRUSTED INTERMEDIARY. I PROPOSE THAT WE MAKE THIS TRANSFER BEFORE MID-2008.

I KNOW THAT A TRANSACTION OF THIS MAGNITUDE WOULD MAKE ANYONE APPREHENSIVE AND WORRIED. BUT I AM ASSURING YOU THAT ALL WILL BE WELL AT THE END OF THE DAY. A BOLD STEP TAKEN SHALL NOT BE REGRETTED, I ASSURE YOU. PLEASE DO BE INFORMED THAT THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO CO-OPERATE IN THIS TRANSACTION, PLEASE CONTACT OUR INTERMEDIARY REPRESENTATIVES TO FURTHER DISCUSS THE MATTER.

I PRAY THAT YOU UNDERSTAND OUR PLIGHT. MY COMPANY AND OUR COLLEAGUES WILL BE FOREVER GRATEFUL. PLEASE REPLY IN STRICT CONFIDENCE TO THE CONTACT NUMBERS BELOW.

SINCERELY WITH WARM REGARDS,

WILLIAM HENRY GATES III

Google has a much more solid and robust strategy for gobbling up new users on completely new platforms, like mobile. The Yahoo brand is flagging badly, and whenever most people think of Yahoo, they picture that boring, goofy red logo and grey website that screams “1997″….

Give me one example of a truly innovative or standout killer app that Yahoo has served up with since it bought Broadcast.com and that site disappeared into the black hole of Yahoo’s awful, confusing internet radio offerings.

Flickr *might* qualify as a standout service, but other than that — what is there?

Most of Yahoo’s offerings — like “Groups” — are so complicated and spam-infested, it would take a Divine Strake bomb just to unravel them and figure out where the profitability lies.

In a merger, you want 2 + 2 = 5

This is 2 + 2 = 3

This is something cooked up by the investment houses to get fees.

“If Fiorina got $1B in kickbacks with the merge of HP/Compaq, I’ll get $5B with this one, suck this lemon carly!!1!”

most of us started to web surf with yahoo; but yahoo made crucial mistakes:
1. didn’t buy ebay, when they could
2. didn’t buy google, when they could
3. didn’t buy youtube, when they could
4. didn’t buy facebook when they could
5. didn’t consolidate in one powerful yahoo web2.0 platform all their properties (pretty cool individually, flickr, del.icio.us, upocoming…etc..)

this will be their destiny. yahoo will be remembered as a footnote in the history of the web, like altavista, excite, lycos…

pretty sad.

Now, I read a little more tone of…excitement? Curiosity? Google’s rise, Microsoft’s more modest online success and Yahoo’s torpor have re-arranged attitudes somewhat.

It was there an hour ago.

GMT is +0800 from PST.