RSSRoundtable part 2: Will Microsoft + Yahoo give everyone what he wants?
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published February 4, 2008, 6:28 PM
(continued from previous page)
Of black, white, and "grey" knights
Last Thursday evening's resignation of Yahoo chairman Terry Semel may have brought the whole issue to a head. The new board under non-executive chairman Roy Bostock has just now begun to solidify. So it may be easier now for Yahoo's shareholders to stand against the board if it stands firm against Microsoft, especially if it accepts any offer of an investment alliance from potential "white knight" Google, if shareholders believe the board stands in the way of their being able to realize their stock's inherent value.
"Whatever color the knight is, at the end of the day, shareholders don't care," Levy remarked. "They want differential creation of value. So if shareholders believe that this will, in fact, lead to that, then they'll reward Microsoft for doing so; if they don't believe so, then Microsoft's going to get spanked in the markets over the next few weeks."
The backdrop for all of this, as we were reminded by Matt Rosoff, analyst for independent firm Directions on Microsoft, is the sharp downturn in the US and global economies. It's the existence of economic downturns that typically turns advertisers' moods sour.
"There's a lot of uncertainty with Internet advertising in general," noted Rosoff. "We might be entering a recession, and in that case, Internet ad revenues in general might drop off a cliff. Both Yahoo and Google showed pretty bad Q4s, or worse than expected. So there's a lot of uncertainty there."
Yahoo isn't exactly hemorrhaging, Rosoff mentioned, but it hasn't stopped bailing water, either. At some point the company had hopes to pare itself back to what its core business was. But even with its co-founder having taken over the CEO helm, Rosoff said, it sent out the message last Tuesday that it might not be so certain what or where that core resides any more.
"It's possible," he said, "that they were planning on making some necessary cuts and getting back to some kind of core business, but it's hard to know what that core business is supposed to be. Search was part of it, and Google kind of swept in and took that business away. But maybe if they had gotten back to some of these core Internet services -- mail and messaging and the old portal method -- and really concentrated on building out a few of their properties, that could've been better for them."
Yahoo can't quite answer the basic question, "What am I?" contends Rosoff. By contrast, Microsoft -- which is primarily a big software firm that sells Windows and Office to enterprise clients, and does quite a few other things on the side -- at least has a message, compatible or not.
"I don't feel that Yahoo has had a consistent corporate message, and I think that's maybe part of their problem. They're all things to everybody. They're starting to build out some developer tools and that kind of thing, but...Microsoft is a completely different animal. It still, for most intents and purposes, sells software to very large organizations. That's where most of its money comes from."
Because Microsoft is such a different animal, Rosoff believes, not many Yahoo employees will actually take Microsoft's offer. In fact, one of Yahoo's higher profile advertising platform product managers jumped ship just this morning: Dr. Kiumarse Zamanian has left his Yahoo position to join startup firm Glam Online, with the objective of developing tools to help its advertising clients better target female audiences.
But Microsoft may not actually care all that much about what Yahoo loses, or what it does not stand to gain, by way of humanpower. What may matter most is the statement it makes for itself.
"This is Microsoft saying we're absolutely going to be here, and we're going to run so fast," he remarked. "The other option is monopoly, and Microsoft didn't want Google to get to that point."
Carmi Levy agreed: "Microsoft's on a roll now, and this is yet another sign that it's very much alive and very much willing to continue to take chances... It's a shot across Google's bow, letting Google know that Microsoft will not cede what it perceives as its fair share of Internet advertising revenue today, tomorrow, and in the years ahead. Microsoft wants to let both Google and the rest of the market know that it has no intention of playing second fiddle to anyone, much less Google."
COMPLETE BETANEWS COVERAGE OF MICROSOFT + YAHOO
- Google positions itself as Yahoo's white knight against Microsoft
- Roundtable: Four experts dissect the Microsoft bid for Yahoo
- Analysis: The impact of Microsoft's bid on customers
- Ballmer: Yahoo would give Microsoft a "consumer face" online
- Microsoft makes a colossal bid for Yahoo in wake of chairman's departure
I've read "I want software as a service from Microsoft". IMO that's what they want too, being Vista only a step towards that final goal. Big money at sight...
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|We have to keep the focus on a basic premise. Microsoft does not create innovation but tries to convince us all that they control its destiny. They will create yet one more platform to tells us really what it is that we think we need and how we want it. They will also make sure to lets us know, what questions need to be asked ourselves and were to find the answer which is going to be in their next generation of products. Google is learning to beat Microsoft at their own game with no intent of competing but just creating an additional universe of fake needs.
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|save us Google! save us!
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|Also, MS has plenty of money to focus on windows and also to focus on other things, I mean comon...they company is HUGE. If you think this will hinder the development of Windows you must not understand how a company of this size works.
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|If MS doesn't buy yahoo, there may be no yahoo in the future anyhow. In case you guys haven't realized...they are not doing so hot. This is what is needed in order to form a strong countersink to the Google machine. I am all for it, even though I use google services daily. In the end this is for the better, MS has the money to keep yahoo on top of things and (thought I highly doubt it) they may even add some fresh ideas to other things besides advertising which seems to be all anyone cares about these days. I guess they gotta make money somehow.
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|They're all playing a zero sum game. No one gets what they want, least of all the consumer.
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|I wish Microsoft would just focus on making the best D*** OS it can and leave advertising to the others....With Linux and Mac at their door step they sure don't need to trip and stumble while trying to aquire what I see is a fleeting moment...
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|I want software as a service from Microsoft where I pay a flat fee yearly and I get the latest and greatest. I want this all managed by MS so I don't have to think about it or hire staff to manage it.
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|Action pack? MSDN? Site licenses?
The options are there, but it's not for the average user. How many users need more than perhaps 2-3 MSFT products at any time? (OS, Office, ??)
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|I love how people may read this article and agree with Google. If you look at it, Google is not the "white" knight in this case, they are actually trying to gain the monopoly this time...not MS. What a way to twist the situation, and make it look like you are the savior, when in fact you are trying to gain a monopoly of the market.
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|Nothing wrong about gaining a monopoly, it might mean you have the best product.
Where things turn evil is when a company uses it's monopoly to force out competition in other markets.
Owning a lever is not illegal. Using it to overturn another mans apple cart is.
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|If you have notice, this site is very MS bias. Anything good with MS, they can put it negatively. A post like this probably get deleted.
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|What are you talking about?? He's talking about people agreeing with google...this site is reporting google's "spin"...not its own.
You know what I love best...is that all the Sony fanboys think this site is biased against Sony, and all the MS fanboys think it's biased against MS...and there's there's those Nintendo fanboys who think this site is biased against Nintendo.
I mean seriously...they can't be biased against everybody...
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|Oh no... I cannot believe what I read. If this site is biased, it is not against MS but towards that company. There are some editors that wrote somewhat critic-articles "against" Microsoft, but the titles that stay on the top of the site are usually those that mention the MS "work" for good.
Betanews does NOT censor user comments, if they do, my account could be banned from a long time :). I am very critic on MS business practices, software design and often reply hard to some of the many MS troll-fans present here. Don´t I boys?
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|LOL...see, this is hilarious. :)
People always find bias:)
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|I read biased articles and news too often. And they usually come from marketing "people" that reflect (dark) business practices. But that is not hilarous at all, it is sad.
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|"Betanews does NOT censor user comments..."
Oh yes they do.
I've had my comments deleted more than once because I've criticized the "journalist".
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|The problem is defining where one market does or does not crossover into another market.
With Win95, MSFT thought the browser would become integral to the OS, and damn near built the entire user interface around it.
Back then, it was seen as MSFT using its OS dominance to gain share in the browser market. Now, that would be far more arguable...many see the web browser as integral to the OS.
Still, I think that had Microsoft offered "Windows" and the "Windows Computing Suite" (for an additional $30), they'd have avoided all of those issues.
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|Also doing all this the people at MS are saying that they can function without without Bill Gates at the helm...even though he may be looking in every so often.
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|all acquisitions/mergers such as these result in workforce downsizing. so regardless of what color the knight is, there "will be" downsizing at yahoo.
unfortunately the yahooligans may not realize that irregardless of the acquisition, they are dang if they do and dang if they don't.
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