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Yahoo! Businesses Google Microsoft The Almighty Buck The Internet

Yahoo Ends Talks With Microsoft, Embraces Google Instead 214

Posted by timothy from the oh-google-you're-so-good-to-me dept.
snydeq writes with a story from InfoWorld which says that "Yahoo has ended its talks with Microsoft and is instead nearing an agreement with Google. Yahoo's purported reason for breaking off the talks? That Microsoft was only interested in purchasing Yahoo's search business, not all of the company. 'Such a transaction would not be consistent with the company's view of the converging search and display marketplaces, would leave the company without an independent search business that it views as critical to its strategic future and would not be in the best interests of Yahoo stockholders,' the company said in a statement. The deal with Google allegedly involves Yahoo's search advertising business. The move likely will draw more ire from Icahn and may in fact remain part of the elaborate poker game between the two companies. Microsoft said this alternative transaction remains on the table and did not confirm that talks between it and Yahoo have concluded." Update: 06/12 23:58 GMT by T : CWmike writes "Just hours after saying it ended talks with Microsoft, Yahoo announced that it will start running advertising from Google alongside Yahoo search results. Yahoo expects the deal, which has a 10-year term, to generate $250 million to $450 million in operating cash flow during the first 12 months."
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Yahoo Ends Talks With Microsoft, Embraces Google Instead More

Yahoo Ends Talks With Microsoft, Embraces Google Instead

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  • LULZ (Score:5, Funny)

    by Recovering Hater ( 833107 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @04:58PM (#23770275)
    Because that is just want Microsoft wants to hear. Yahoo is teaming with Google. Burn baby burn.

    • Re:LULZ (Score:4, Funny)

      by Recovering Hater ( 833107 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:00PM (#23770311)
      Oh and also, cue the chair jokes in 3,2,1...

    • Re:LULZ (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WilyCoder ( 736280 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:01PM (#23770315)
      Would a Yahoogle monopoly be any better than an MS one?

      I'm not a MS supporter (or troll), that was an honest question...

      • Re:LULZ (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:08PM (#23770427)
        Of course not. But a GOOHOO! monopoly... then we'd need to worry.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ady1 ( 873490 )

        Monoply: (economics) a market in which there are many buyers but only one seller; "a monopoly on silver"; "when you have a monopoly you can ask any price ...
        Last time I checked, Microsoft does has a market share and is an alternative, although mostly crap.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by prockcore ( 543967 )
          Last time I checked, MS was convicted of abusing their "monopoly" while Linux and MacOS existed.

          • Re:LULZ (Score:5, Insightful)

            by _KiTA_ ( 241027 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @10:38PM (#23773627) Homepage

            Last time I checked, MS was convicted of abusing their "monopoly" while Linux and MacOS existed.
            Last I heard, they had something like a 95% market share at that time, and used it to propel their shitty Internet browser from a 5% market share to a 90%-someodd market share.

            Which is why they were, you know, found guilty?

      • Look on the bright side (Score:5, Funny)

        by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:47PM (#23770927) Homepage
        At least there'll only be one toolbar to remove from people's browsers...

      • Re:LULZ (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Chyeld ( 713439 ) <chyeld.gmail@com> on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:54PM (#23771013)
        If it allowed Flikr integration with the rest of Google, hell yeah.

        That's about the only Yahoo! service that I still consider superior to Google's offerings.

        Superficial reasoning aside, yes and no.

        On one hand, a Goo-ho! would involve diluting the corporate culture of Google, risking it becoming less of a company that I look up to as an example of how to be successful and ethical. That would be bad. On the other hand, these two companies could actually mesh well when you consider WHAT they provide. The resulting conglomeration would have about the best of most of the 'big' web services that are offered out there.

        A Yah-soft would just be the next interation of Microsoft Live! before it tanked yet again due to poor manaegment and a lack of any discernable goals other than "we need to be out there, doing... something!"

        • Re:LULZ (Score:5, Insightful)

          by tknd ( 979052 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @07:04PM (#23771743)

          I think you missed the main issue that deals with web marketing--a topic that most geeks on slashdot are not familiar with. The problem with Yahoo siding with Google is that it helps establish Google as the king of search and online advertising. All three services (Google, Yahoo, MSN) make a huge chunk if their revenue through online advertising and marketing services. Since Google will now have it's hands toying around with Yahoo, Google could just slowly eat away at Yahoo's margins or eventually buy them out. That would leave the last significant competitor as MSN which isn't even much of a competitor. The end result is basically a Google monopoly on web marketing until the next big disruptive marketing tech comes along.

          Google's online marketing market share is already so significant that most web marketing firms won't even touch Yahoo or MSN networks because the effort is simply not worth the return. But now you say if I go through Google I'll also get a piece of Yahoo? Big win for Google.

          In this situation, I think Yahoo honestly had a choice between two devils with different faces. They may have royally pissed off their shareholders with shrugging off MS, but they may keep their company alive for a little longer.

          As far as my own opinion, I'm split. On one side as a consumer, I think there needs to be more web marketing competitors to compete with Google in order to maintain a healthy market. On the other hand I am a Google shareholder. I suppose in this case I win (and lose) either way.

      • For example, if you are a chair in Redmond, i wouldn't be in your place.
        If you are a Yahoo stockholder, it M$ would give you an one time cash, but then Yahoo would be left to rot. With Google, they might have a good business, and eventually merge wholly with Google.
        If you are a M$ stockholder, you should probably buy Yahoogle stock, it is safer (better for you), believe me.
        If you are Icahn, you suck.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        1. Yahoo and Google are committed to the web, not some silvershite bullshit!
        2. Both companies appear to be comfortable with the idea of competition
        3. Neither company has ever touted anything like "The Microsoft Network", proprietary forerunner to MSN
        4. Less risk of injury from flying chairs


        And plenty of other reasons...

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 )

        Would a Yahoogle monopoly be any better than an MS one?

        Microsoft has several monopolies and regularly abuses them. Yahoo being acquired by them would give them enough share to be close to having several more, which would certainly become new monopolies soon as they abuse their other monopolies to make sure that happens.

        On the other hand, even if Google and Yahoo merged, that would not necessarily give them even one monopoly. See how it makes a difference?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Ilyakub ( 1200029 )

        Yes, it would be much, much better.

        What we dislike about Microsoft is not that it is big and powerful but that it releases poor quality products and destroys its competition using monopolistic tactics.

        Google, on the other hand, supports Free and open-source software, has excellent products that geeks love, is concerned about seamless co-operation and integration of all web services (even ones that they don't own) and wins by having the better product, and constantly improving it.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by BIGELLOW ( 970109 )
        There's a difference. If Microsoft bought Yahoo!, it would be monopolistic. If Microsoft made an exclusive deal with Yahoo!, it would be monopolistic. If Microsoft made a NON-EXCLUSIVE deal with Yahoo!, it wouldn't be monopolistic.

        In this case, Yahoo! made a NON-EXCLUSIVE deal with Google. This isn't monopolistic. Google also has a number of different deals with AOL. Google and Yahoo once had various deals with each other. Google also has a deal with Mozilla. Businesses do deals all the time, but ye

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jhol13 ( 1087781 )
        Yes.

        Especially if if somehow would kill Microsoft monopoly.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by k1e0x ( 1040314 )

        Would a Yahoogle monopoly be any better than an MS one?
        I for one embrace our new Gohoo masters.

    • Re:LULZ (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Prof.Phreak ( 584152 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:05PM (#23770381) Homepage
      but now Microsoft only has 1 target. yahoo has just about admitted that google has won the search business.

      • Re:LULZ (Score:5, Interesting)

        by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:32PM (#23770765)
        But does having one target now help MS in any way? They knew Google was their main competition. If they could beat Google, they could beat Yahoo. The problem was that they couldn't beat Google. Maybe as a consolation they could beat Yahoo but going for 2nd place is admitting defeat too.

        • Re:LULZ (Score:5, Insightful)

          by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @06:45PM (#23771589) Journal
          I don't think it was about going for second. I really think Microsoft really wanted Yahoo as a way to compete with Google. Yahoo does in fact have lots of interesting tech, like pipes, as well as an entire suite of superior web portal offerings with a decent advertizing and anyalitics business to go with it. MSN is at the bottom of the heap from a tech prespective, but at the top as far as resources its parent company could put into it; that is if they had some direction to go in. Yahoo technology and its brand could have given that to Microsoft, and they might have been real competition for Google in its core spaces had they aquired Yahoo. Yahoo on the other hand does not have the capital or market position to keep on pace with Google and will continue to faulter without something to save them. Sure it could be something amazingly inovative and market shifting; or it could be a large pool of Microsoft Money(pun entended) that would enable them to take what they have and make it substantially better.

          Microsoft tried as they always do to manipulate the market place and get themselves a sweatheart deal rather then playing a more "fair game" as fair as large cap market stock deals get anyway. They ended up souring the deal. I think it was bad business on their part. They should have made a fair offer and done the deal. Sure Yahoo got hurt more then Microsoft did but thats not what it was about. Microsoft really lost an oppertunity they wanted, no matter how the outsiders and small investors see it, the Microhoo fiasco was a failure of Microsoft's.

          I don't know what Google gets outa Yahoo other then sheer mass. I don't think Yahoo represents the top drawer tech when compared with Google. Yes there is some good Yahoo technology that Google can assimilate easily, but its probably not worth what Google has to pay. The brand and portal offerings are of little value to Google becase theirs are already better. To Google's credit though they have gotten quite big and demonstrated from a leadership standpoint they can manage the mass. If you are going to tangle with an 800lb gorrilla like Microsoft, being a 600lb gorilla rather then the 500lb you already are might give you that little bit of extra inertia needed to prevent Microsoft from steam rolling you by tring to take the web proprietary again with dotNet, still more activeX, and silverlight.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Samizdata ( 1093963 )
      (to a familiar banjo tune)

      YaHOOOOOOOOOgle...
  • One of the few losses he's ever had. But then if you are a billionaire, you can foul up once in a while. Witness Paul Allen of MS fame.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by thermian ( 1267986 )
      he hasn't lost just yet.

      Also, in what way has Paul Allen failed? Seems to me he's doing rather well for himself.

      The smartest thing he ever did was get out of the running of Microsoft. I was always of the opinion he was an ok bloke.

      • Re:Carl Icahn (Score:4, Interesting)

        by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:09PM (#23770433) Homepage Journal
        If there was one Microsoft gazillionaire I'd actually want to meet, it would be Paul Allen.

      • Re:Carl Icahn (Score:5, Funny)

        by Otter ( 3800 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:51PM (#23770975) Journal
        Also, in what way has Paul Allen failed? Seems to me he's doing rather well for himself.

        His various dot-com and VC projects have mostly cost him money (IIRC), his sports teams have mostly sucked, his 413 foot yacht has fallen to number 8 on the World's Largest Yacht list [wikipedia.org] and Jimi Hendrix was, in hindsight, wildly overrated. Without the billions in his pocket to begin with, you wouldn't say he's doing that well.

        On the plus side, he's nowhere near as appalling as the seven guys with bigger yachts than his.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by afabbro ( 33948 )

          ...and Jimi Hendrix was, in hindsight, wildly overrated.

          cough I think you mean the Experience museum in Seattle, not Jimi himself ;-)

        • Ok someone bitchslap that dumb white guy for complaining about the size of someones yacht and calling Jimmy Hendrix over rated. Man, I'm white but I still gotta call you too white.
        • Did you not follow the Trailblazers' season last year?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cptdondo ( 59460 )
          Christ, did anyone look at the names of those yachts? What a bunch of dweebs!

          If I had a yacht that big, I'd give it some really hot chick name, something really sexy. Pandora, Alastrina, Ailis, Iona, Andromeda would be good. Not Octopus! Fer chissakes, they're slimy and cold and have a sharp beak!

          Then again, my boat is 14' long and 40 years old.... So what do I know.

      • Re:Carl Icahn (Score:5, Informative)

        by afabbro ( 33948 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @06:00PM (#23771077) Homepage

        Also, in what way has Paul Allen failed? Seems to me he's doing rather well for himself.

        Overall, sure, but he has certainly had his share of losers [businessweek.com]. For example, "BusinessWeek magazine calculated he had lost $US12 billion in the previous five years." [cyberiapc.com].

  • ... Yahoogle?

  • Not surprising... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:03PM (#23770351) Homepage Journal
    Given that MSN search is horrible, I can see where MS would want to vulch that one piece of Yahoo, and that probably wouldn't run afoul of anti-trust laws. In any event, as a huge fan of Flickr, I'm glad there is no longer a serious threat that my beloved photo service will succumb to Redmondian rapine.

    And of course, it's highly plausible that this whole effort from Microsoft was intended solely to serve their own interests by creating the perception they were going to acquire, and they never intended to go through with it, for whatever arcane market reasons.

    Programming is simple. Business is complicated.

    • Re:Not surprising... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sznupi ( 719324 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:06PM (#23770403) Homepage
      I'll go one step further - I can't wait when my Flickr account will be integrated with my Google account ;) (oh, and del.icio.us is also sort-of nice... ;P )

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by InlawBiker ( 1124825 )

      And of course, it's highly plausible that this whole effort from Microsoft was intended solely to serve their own interests by creating the perception they were going to acquire, and they never intended to go through with it, for whatever arcane market reasons.

      On a deal this huge there's so much back-room strategy and PR feinting / posturing it's impossible for us normal geeks to get the real story. It's akin to planning the D-Day invasion while saying, 'yeah, we're thinking about sending a boat or two over there eventually.'

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by cyphercell ( 843398 )
        look beyond the tactics and for a second consider the strategy, what does yahoo really want? What does Icahn want? Ballmer? Google? Who do you think will win after putting the whole thing in perspective?
        • "Who do you think will win after putting the whole thing in perspective?"

          I'm guessing that no one will win. Apparently no one has done even a little bit of creative thinking.

    • Re:Not surprising... (Score:5, Funny)

      by CowboyNealOption ( 1262194 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @06:06PM (#23771151) Journal
      I have always found it amusing that MSN returns 142,000 hits for Ubuntu while Goooogle returns 93,400,000 hits (and yahoo returns 174,000,000). Either MSN is filtering results or they just aren't indexing the web very well.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by wan-fu ( 746576 )
        It's commonly known that the numbers presented in terms of the number of results by all three search engines is an estimate by those engines. In general, Google's system wildly overestimates the number of results it finds. As does Yahoo's. Try performing a search with fewer results so that you can try to reach the "end" of the results. In most cases, you'll find Google is overestimating.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by SharpFang ( 651121 )
        Try Yahoo search for a less popular term or check the last pages.

        Yahoo indexes a 404 as a valid search result.
  • Or does this mean that both Google and Microsoft are gathering their own Borg collectives. I am so confused. Someone get me a glass of water, something with a snazzy brand name please....

  • What Yahoo Wants? (Score:3, Funny)

    by denobug ( 753200 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:08PM (#23770419)
    So first Yahoo doesn't want MS to buy them out. Next they don't like the fact that Microsoft only want part of the assets(instead of the entire company). Really, what does Yahoo wants? Sounds like asking your wife which restaurant for dinner. And she always says any one of them is fine, but just don't like the one you pick.

    • Re:What Yahoo Wants? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pak9rabid ( 1011935 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:14PM (#23770501)

      So first Yahoo doesn't want MS to buy them out. Next they don't like the fact that Microsoft only want part of the assets(instead of the entire company). Really, what does Yahoo wants?
      Sounds like to me the CEO of Yahoo doesn't want to sell out to Microsoft, but also doesn't want to be crucified by the board for not selling out to someone. Google seems like an attractive option for him, if that's the case.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by timeOday ( 582209 )
        Microsoft and google are huge rivals with huge bank accounts, so playing them off each other to compete over you seems like a good strategy. I'm not sure what "wanting" to be bought out by one company vs. another really means to a CEO. If courting google makes Microsoft jealous enough to overbid for Yahoo, I think Yahoo would accept.

  • Let me be the first to cry (Score:4, Insightful)

    by i kan reed ( 749298 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:09PM (#23770443) Homepage Journal
    antitrust. Competition made the search market healthy. If they team up and work together we lose that. It'll be just like Microsoft circa 1995 again, with googhoo(yagle?) having their fingers in everything search and ad related. No choices. I don't like this at all.
  • Yahoo has a problem with Carl Icahn trying to take the company over that it has to deal with first.

    If they don't do something to appease angry shareholders like do a stock buyback, they might wind up as Microhoo anyway.

  • Yahoo Ends Talks With Microsoft (Score:3, Funny)

    by Daimanta ( 1140543 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:21PM (#23770605) Journal
    "Embraces Google Instead"

    Next thing you know, Yahoo will be extending Google. And then, good Lord!

  • Together they will be unstoppable (Score:3, Insightful)

    by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:25PM (#23770661)
    With Google and Yahoo finally working together, just IMAGINE how many Chinese dissidents they'll be able to turn it!

  • Here's an idea (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CrackedButter ( 646746 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:28PM (#23770715) Homepage Journal
    Why doesn't Microsoft just use their huge amounts of money and work for it, where is their internal drive and passion? Just get a clue already and stop trying to buy everyone just to get a shortcut.

    • Re:Here's an idea (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ArhcAngel ( 247594 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @06:00PM (#23771075)
      Why doesn't Microsoft just use their huge amounts of money and work for it, where is their internal drive and passion?

      QDOS -> MSDOS
      MAC OS -> Windows
      Spyglass -> IE
      BSD TCPIP stack -> Spider stack -> Windows NT stack
      JAVA -> J+ -> J#
      Flash -> Silverlight

      You must be REALLY new here!
      • Not really, I'm just sick to death with how Microsoft operate and have always operated.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        QDOS -> MSDOS
        Actually its:
        CP/M -> QDOS (developed by MS) -> MSDOS (QDOS in a nice shrink wrapped package)

  • Oh, god, no... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by argent ( 18001 ) <peter@slashdot . ... t a r o nga.com> on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:30PM (#23770743) Homepage Journal
    Please, Google, don't incorporate anything from Yahoo. Please. I'm beggin' you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rts008 ( 812749 )
      Hear! Hear!
      Just the thought of that makes my lunch want to escape forcefully!

    • Re:Oh, god, no... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by boarder8925 ( 714555 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @06:42PM (#23771529)

      Please, Google, don't incorporate anything from Yahoo. Please. I'm beggin' you.
      Flickr? Del.icio.us?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Omestes ( 471991 )
      Except Flickr and Del.icio.us, of course. I can see some nice possibilities with those two services integrating with Google.

      All of the search bits though... Ugh. I hated Yahoo when it was the only big player in the search/portal market, I tried to avoid using it like the plague sticking to the crappy DMOZ, Hotbot, and Webcrawler alternatives. Though getting listed on Yahoo in the mid-90's was shades of awesome.

  • If these were any other two companies... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Thai-Pan ( 414112 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @05:46PM (#23770925) Journal
    ...would we be seeing the same reaction on Slashdot?

    Seriously, imagine if Apple were trying to acquire, for instance Transmeta, (purely hypothetical) and offering a 45%+ premium. And Transmeta in response turned it down and set up internal policies to make generous severence payments to employees who chose to leave after the acquisition.

    What do you call that? I call it gross breach of fiduciary duty to your stockholders. I am fortunately not a Yahoo stockholder, but if I was, I'd be pretty pissed about this.
    • I agree that you can't have it both ways - go public to get investors, then make private decisions to screw those investors. But for us Average Joe Dualcore consumers, Microsoft failing to become less powerful is the best we could ask for. Google becoming more powerful is questionable, but so far they've used their power for far greater good than Microsoft.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by daemonburrito ( 1026186 )

      What is this "gross breach of fiduciary duty" you speak of? Is that a legal thing?

      Yang boarding a flight to the Caribbean with suitcases stuffed with cash would be one thing, thinking beyond a one time buyout deal is quite another.

      From almost exactly a year ago: http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/9388783?f=related [cfo.com]

      Suing a corporation for not selling their grandmothers for a nickel is an abuse of the legal system.

    • Re:If these were any other two companies... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by myowntrueself ( 607117 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @07:30PM (#23772043)
      I think that stockholders are only interested in one thing; making great steaming gobs of cash as fast as possible.

      They take no pride in the company in which they have stock.
      They don't care about employees or customers.
      They have huge great dollar signs in their eyes and cannot see past them.

      They would gladly fuck it to death for all the money they can and then dispose of the corpse.

      That, my friend, is 'fiduciary duty'. Fuck 'em to death, wring the cash out then wash your hands and move to the next target to suck the life out of.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Epistax ( 544591 )
        I don't really buy into the "owning stock means controlling company" philosophy that our laws currently support. When I look at my portfolio, I view my shares as educated bets. I am betting that the company will do better. If it doesn't, it's MY FAULT for investing in it.

        No matter how much money I invest in a company, it won't automatically make me wiser about the industry, or more familiar with the internal culture. My opinion doesn't somehow become valid, and weighted by how much money I've put on
        • Sure, you can do what Google did: Don't put "turning a profit" into your mission statement. Google's stated goal is to organize the world's information, and when you buy Google stock (assuming you've done your homework), you know that's what you're buying in to. Plus, their official stated motto is "Don't be evil." When you buy in to them, you accept that they may pass on a very lucrative deal if they perceive it as evil. On top of all that, Page and Brin together hold a majority of the stock, so anythi

    • If these were any other two companies ... would we be seeing the same reaction on Slashdot?

      Well, if they were companies as heavily invested in the computing industry and with as much influence, and one of them was an abuse monopoly single-handedly responsible for holding back progress in multiple areas of the computer industry for decades, well then probably.

      Seriously, imagine if Apple were trying to acquire, for instance Transmeta...

      Not many people would care because Apple doesn't have a monopoly, hasn't been abusing it, and will likely not result in any market stagnating and resulting detrimental effects for those of us here.

  • The "elaborate poker game" is pure speculation (no pun intended). It is entirely possible that Yahoo mgmt and executives actually think ownership by Microsoft is bad for the future of the company.

    This "Yahoo is bluffing" meme assumes that it is illogical for Yahoo to think that they are better off without Microsoft. Why is it so hard to accept? From where I'm sitting, a Microsoft deal would be bad for Yahoo.

  • Evil is as Evil does... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TheNetAvenger ( 624455 ) on Thursday June 12, 2008 @07:30PM (#23772047)
    Google is by nature of progression being too big and no matter how 'good' the leaders want the company to be, the competitive nature is shoving them to the very dark side. (Especially when Google is essentially a marketing company that makes money off of ads and market manipulation.)

    It is like taking the the industry's two biggest's evils and putting them in one company model.

    Take Apple's (less than truthful and borderline brainwashing) marketing team, and combine this with a company out growing its footprint with so many internal groups and people working with 'competitive' emerging technologies (like Microsoft of the early 90s) and you will get one of the biggest and evil company models in history.

    Google digging through GMail years ago should of been the first 'heads-up', but their recent 'embrace, extend, use for the gain, not the consumers' mentaility has taken over tons of OSS projects that originally had no 'questionable' back doors, like Firefox does now with its search monitoring and Google ties that it easily hands the data to at any request.

    As for Yahoo, they took a phone book model, moved to a real search engine (finally) and then was able to survive with gaming and IM (online gaming communities being the key for them). Yahoo has market share, not technology that anyone wants. Yahoo doesn't have internal development that is more advanced than Google or Microsoft when it comes to community, development, or search technologies. It would be more of a win for Google, as Google would get a solid IM technology, where MS doesn't need IM or any of the other services.

    So I think it is good that Google will eat up Yahoo, so it will go away, but the warning on the label, it is giving more power to ONE company, and sadly this company (Google) is no longer by nature alone a 'do no evil' company, any more than Microsoft of the 90s was.

    People act like Microsoft tried to use Windows around 1995 to kill off other companies, but people forget during this whole timeframe and Internet movement, Microsoft was heavily investing in MSN and online technologies, but the Win95 and Win98 OS CDs installed icons and installatino software for everything from AOL to Compuserve, as well as Java and other crap that Microsoft did not produce, most of which being competitive software outside the Windows division.

    Google needs a big reign in, or a self check, if not as they doing now, will be bigger and far more evil than Microsoft... And be manipulating the online media with their ad control, like they have already done with their anti-MS shoves to tech journalists.

    And in the fragile online world, all it sometimes takes is a mild threat or offering a free venue and some hardware...

    Chris P. and his free Macs, just all of sudden deciding he hates Vista because HP wouldn't update their driver for his ancient scanner/printer, and this leading him to love Macs based on usage and 'technical' reasons. And the printer/scanner didn't work any better under OS X, but he failed to admit this part of 'his' story.

    However having some contact with him, he admitted he really didn't understand the technology and his defense was that he was not a journalist or a tech person and was just in the entertainment business.

    Yet he did 'technical' videos and blogs about OS X and Vista during this time that was information he 'obtained' from both Apple and anti-MS companies of interest, and was using their material because it was easier for him. And yet he made news off all this, and mislead a lot of people in the process for a couple of free computers and guaranteed venues for his 'show'.

    Anyone that doens't keep one eye open on Google will find history repeating itself. Even the firefox ties should be enough to scare the crap out of users. Add in Yahoo IM, and their moving 'mobile' presence with a bit of 'borderline' Apple type marketing, and everyone will be racing to screw themselves when Google says, boo, let alone the amount of IT information they already control in the onlin
  • I like Google and the products/services it offers mainly because of their clean interfaces. Yahoo is everything I hate about the web, everything of theirs is about ADS ADS ADS, log into their mail - HERE ARE SOME ADS - use their chat program HERE ARE SOME ADS...sure Google has ads..but they are not in the chat window as well as they are usually text based and not popping up in my face like some purple ape trying to get me to click on him.

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