Microsoft + Yahoo = ?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7222114.stm

Well well...

What do you guys think?

 

Won't hurt Google yet. MS just bought them to get them out of the way, so they can concentrate on getting rid of Google.

 

Still prefer google to be honest...

 

What will happen to yahoo services? Mail, Launchcast...etc...

If MS converts yahoomail to crappy hotmail I will convert to the google-side.

 

I have joined Gmail long ago so much better than hotmail...

 

oh God, please no
still though, i guess that a microsoft-yahoo merger beats yahoo dying out anyday..

 

GMail is much, much better than Live Hotmail or Yahoo Mail. Though if Hotmail got the threaded mail thing like Gmail has, then I'd have no problems with switching to it.

This is mainly, as said before, to get Yahoo out of the way. MS will need something seriously kickass to take Google down though.

 

An article I read about it mentioned the possibility of more/better targeted advertising from Microsoft/Yahoo. Ugh. So far Microsoft's targeted advertising has been atrocious and has actually been counterproductive to me. Anyone on Facebook probably knows why (Microsoft manages their advertisement). Google does some targeted advertising in GMail, but it's text-only, and thus much less annoying. I can deal with targeted text advertising, but for picture advertising, I'll take non-targeted any day! Unless Google/Yahoo is a whole lot less bad at targeted advertising than Microsoft.

So until Facebook's/Microsoft's targeted advertising gets much, much better, I'll have to be against this merger.

Edit: Add another vote to the GMail bandwagon. Yahoo was already falling behind when they added photo advertising to their premium accounts (I have one because Yahoo provides my home Internet), and that was the end of the last chance they had.

 

It's just a proposal. They haven't bought them yet.

 

This whole discussion definitely brings up that whole speculation of a Google OS again. With the whole Vista fiasco being one of the main reasons for Microsoft's loss in stock, we could seriously see a Google OS dominating over the Operating System market if it's done well enough. Apple's taken a bite out of the cookie with Leopard; I sure don't see why Google shouldn't do the same.

Of course, I'm not saying it's gonna happen, but it would be interesting if it did.

 

Loss in stock? Where'd you get that? Microsoft's stock hasn't significantly changed in the last 10 years, other than the time when xbox went profitable and the stock jumped up to 36. Its gone down again now, to where it was before.

 

Nearly all tech stocks are down in the last couple weeks due to jitters about the economy... it has nothing to do with any "Vista fiasco". If Microsoft's stock was going to drop due to Vista, it had plenty of time to do so in the past year without waiting until the past couple weeks. Apple stock is down a lot more; why don't you declare a "Leopard fiasco"? (Although actually, I guess Apple's stock drop may be partly due to a "Macbook Air fiasco", or at least some disappointment with the Macworld announcements.)

In its current slump, Microsoft's stock price is at about the level it was a year ago, and it's a little higher than it was two years ago. And when it was up to 36, the Xbox being profitable was probably a factor, but the main reason was because of higher sales of Windows (due to more computers being sold).

But anyway, I do think Google will do a desktop OS at some point, whether Microsoft buys Yahoo or not... and I'm actually surprised they haven't done one yet. I think Google is uniquely positioned to do such a thing and able to make it popular if they promote it seriously (rather than halfheartedly as they seem to do with a lot of their projects).

 

I think a Google OS would be awesome!

 

Same here

 

I wonder about the other Yahoo! services as well & what will it be called.

Me too.

 

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/02/microsoft-yahoo-what-will-stay-and-what-will-go/
Interesting article there.

 

Google OS = Google computers = Look like crap. I just cant imagine them nice looking...

 

I agree, I can't picture it looking nice.

 

There already is a Google OS: http://thinkgos.com/

 

From the legal mumbo-jumbo at the bottom of the home page -

 

Here's the programs and hardware that OS supports:



....crappy WalMart computer

 

MS + Yahoo = Monopoly

 

I guess if you ignore Google and Apple, that would be true.

 

monopoly in what? email?

it's a good move by MS to compete w/ google.

 

Microsoft + Yahoo = Micro-hoo?

 

Definitely agreed I dont want use crappy Hotmail as well and hate Yahoo too Hope M$ dont buy Yahoo..

 

nah, I think it's more like Yahsoft!
Interesting Link.

 

How about Goo-hoo...LOL.

 

Microogle

 

Goosoft

... or maybe SoftGoo.

 

lol hahaha. that's funny.

 

UPDATE: Yahoo declines Microsoft's offer. LINK

 

Why do people want to see a Google OS?
Don't they have enough personal information about you yet? They know what you search for, what you write in your emails and virtually everything else you do online. Do they also need to know what's in your local files?

And of course, what would be the point? What exactly would Google miraculously be able to improve over other OS'es?
Starting from scratch on their own OS is not an option. It has to be compatible with one of the existing ones. So they could make their own Linux distro... But would that really be better than other distros? It's still more Linux than Google, isn't it?

Or they could make an OSX-compatible OS... Yeah right, Apple wouldn't stand for that. It'd also be pointless given how small OSX's marketshare is.

Or they could make a Windows-compatible OS. Which is an insane amount of work, and unlike in the Linux case, they'd have to do everything from scratch (Microsoft sure wouldn't help them).

So what'd it achieve? Why would a Google OS be worth using?

 

People believe that Google is a Saint, and capable of magic, with one goal in the world, and that's to give everyone free stuff.

People think Microsoft is the Devil, and uses voodoo, with one goal in the world, and that's to screw everyone over and take their money.

People think an OS is nothing but a glorified program, and everyone can write a program, especially if it's a large company. That an OS should never crash, be compatible with everything, past, present and future, offer extreme performance, come loaded with free programs and goodies, and be able to boot all the free programs and goodies with a push of a button. And that this program should be easy to program, and free, because $150 is too expensive for that little work.

 

PPL want a Google OS 'cause they think it would be better than Windows. What it all comes down to is there is no perfect OS and there never will be!

 

I actually wrote a 1 page paper on this for my business class if anyone is bored and wants to read it letme know Please don't check for grammar as I'm not an English major

 

Post it man!

 

Microsoft to Borrow Money to Buy Yahoo


How often do you hear about a company like Microsoft talking about borrowing money? I, for one, have never heard of such a thing, and that is why I chose to do my article on this topic. We were talking about companies who are in the global market in class, and I can’t think of a better example than Microsoft, which is the biggest operating system software maker in the world. Microsoft is worth about 265.46 billion, in American dollars. Microsoft is a monopoly in operating system software and was founded by Bill Gates in 1975 with the NASDAQ label MSFT.


On Tuesday, Microsoft went public with their offer of $44.6 billion for the search giant Yahoo.com. Microsoft announced that they plan on paying around 20 billion in American dollars and borrowing the remaining 24.6 billion dollars. This will be the first time Microsoft has ever borrowed money to acquire another company. Their offer is 62% more then what Yahoo’s shares are currently worth. Yahoo’s stock has continued to drop for the past two years. Yahoo has lost countless deals and announced last week that it would lay off 1,000 employees, or 7% of its workforce. A lot of analysts think Yahoo can get more than what Microsoft is offering, especially now that Google has thrown its hat into the ring.


Google has offered to help Yahoo, so they can remain independent. Even with Google’s help Yahoo would be crazy to turn down an offer of 62% more than what their shares are worth. However Yahoo looks at the situation Microsoft has them backed into a corner, and if they don’t make a decision soon they will be getting pressure from their shareholders to accept Microsoft’s deal. This is Microsoft’s attempt to take on Google, and from the look of it, it seems to be working. Google’s stock fell 20.47 points or 3.97%, the biggest stock fall ever for Google. If Google and Yahoo were to combine they would be 80% of the U.S. search market, and a lot of people are looking at antitrust reviews.

 

Nicely done.