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Microsoft to Purchase Yahoo?

eBay

I wouldn't be surprised to see the other internet company, eBay, come in and buy Yahoo. It would provide eBay with several key pieces that they have missing in their current puzzle (which includes PayPal and Skype).

That would be an interesting threat to Google.
 
nagromme said:
Sounds like a bad move for Yahoo rather than a good move for MS... although Yahoo doesn't seem to be doing that great anyway.

It sounds like a GOOD thing for us, since Microsoft is probably more Mac-friendly than Yahoo 🙂

I can see it now: MSN Search and HotMail on iPhones instead of Yahoo and Yahoo Mail 😱
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This is brain dead.

Yahoo is all FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD based. That is OS X's roots.

No. Yahoo is more friendly if Apple made joint relationships with Yahoo, not because Microsoft would buy them.

Microsoft has not designs to make extended relationships with Apple. They keep Office for it's profit making aspects and to stem Anti-Trust issues.
 
williedigital said:
I wonder if the users of yahoo mail are frequent email users though. I'd rather have the computer savy gmailers than the grandmas on yahoo mail. They aren't your market.
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I don't know, I consider myself computer savvy and use Yahoo email but not gmail.

Of course, I use yahoo exclusively as a spam bucket.

My opinion of gmail is kind of a reverse-snob thing. Your kidding yourself if you think gmail is for tech savvy people now. That was the case 5 years ago when it was semi-private. Now, people that don't even know what a virus is use gmail (true story).
 
google is tha sh*it,

so much features, its almost as monopolistic as microsoft, but features works...

just as :apple:mac, it works!
 
I wouldn't really favor this either....

Unlike some people here though, I'm not against this Yahoo/MS merger simply on some grounds that "the big, evil Microsoft empire is growing again!". That's a bunch of FUD, really.

My concern is that with consolidation like this, you're simply going to have a duplication of almost every service the two companies offer online - so that means they'll end up discarding many of them. (Why have MSN Groups and Yahoo Groups if they're both owned by MSN, for example? They'll pick one and remove the other.)

Redundancy is a key reason the Internet is so useful, though. If one service isn't performing well for you, is undergoing some regular maintenance, or whatever - you have alternatives.

A merger like this wouldn't give MS a "monopoly" on any of the features offered. (Obviously, Google has their own variations, and you have other IM choices like AOL or ICQ too.) But it does reduce your options - while not adding any new value I can see for the end user.



amac4me said:
I for one would not favor a Microsoft aquisition of Yahoo.
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Meh

Until I see something really happening, I wouldn't worry about it. My company recently went through a potential buy-out, and since Microsoft and Yahoo are public companies, Yahoo needs to at least listen to and consider any reasonable offer. But either company certainly could terminate any potential deal.

And even if Microsoft does try to purchase Yahoo, would the government step in to inspect if this could cause anti-trust issues? It would be sad to see Yahoo be consumed by Microsoft, especially since Yahoo was one of the earliest pioneers, plus the first search engine that many of us used.
 
dynamicv said:
Bizarre. Google's Investor site agrees with the Yahoo figure, so $146bn it is. So how did NASDAQ lose 100 million shares in their calculation? 😕
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It has to do with the float. Only a portion of Google stock is actually available to the public. Google has about 100 million, or about 1/3 of its stock, reserved for future use, currently unavailable for purchase.

Total value of all shares: 146 billion.

Total value of all shares publicly available: 103 billion.
 
The war rages on

kingtj said:
Unlike some people here though, I'm not against this Yahoo/MS merger simply on some grounds that "the big, evil Microsoft empire is growing again!". That's a bunch of FUD, really.

My concern is that with consolidation like this, you're simply going to have a duplication of almost every service the two companies offer online - so that means they'll end up discarding many of them. (Why have MSN Groups and Yahoo Groups if they're both owned by MSN, for example? They'll pick one and remove the other.)

Redundancy is a key reason the Internet is so useful, though. If one service isn't performing well for you, is undergoing some regular maintenance, or whatever - you have alternatives.

A merger like this wouldn't give MS a "monopoly" on any of the features offered. (Obviously, Google has their own variations, and you have other IM choices like AOL or ICQ too.) But it does reduce your options - while not adding any new value I can see for the end user.
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I think the concern is more about how Microsoft kills off good technology that is a threat to it's hegemony. This would indirectly affect us in the Mac community because Yahoo! has announced an initiive to provide services for Apple's new iPhone and has publically stated their desire to do more. A Microsoft merger would kill these initives in favor of supporting their own competing products and services. This raises the old monopoly specter of the past. So, even though this would not represent a monopoly position for Microsoft, it would still have the same net affect on us as Mac users, that is, robbing us of technologies that we otherwise want.
 
kingtj said:
Unlike some people here though, I'm not against this Yahoo/MS merger simply on some grounds that "the big, evil Microsoft empire is growing again!". That's a bunch of FUD, really.
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Microsoft has yet to be truly successful in the online world. Microsoft's popularity in the online world keeps shrinking smaller and smaller, not growing. They're desperate at this point. So (once again) Microsoft is trying to buy "success"...

I think Google's Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs are probably on the phone right now brainstorming how they can offer their help and support of the deal to go through. Why? Because Microsoft will end up totally screwing-up both Yahoo and itself, to the Nth degree, via the resulting culture clash that's bound to occur if the two companies would try to mesh. 🙄
 
Even though the Wall Street Journal states this not likely going to happen, it does make sense. Yahoo has for some time been very un mac friendly. With Google rawking the world M$ is going to want to try and be the other dominant force.
 
synth3tik said:
Even though the Wall Street Journal states this not likely going to happen, it does make sense. Yahoo has for some time been very un mac friendly. With Google rawking the world M$ is going to want to try and be the other dominant force.
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Microsoft's been "trying" to gain a clue about how the online world of content and advertising works since about the time Windows 95 came out.

They have yet to "get it." 😛
 
iphone

.

Wasn't FREE PUSH from YAHOO MAIL part of the collabortaion deal with Apple and the iphone?😱, just as Google maps was???

If I am correct, and if MS were to buy Yahoo, Apple would be at MS YAHOO's mercy... correct?😕

food for thought...
 
There go all the projects Apple and Yahoo were working on. Oh and lets not forget the iPhone Yahoo push mail capability.
 
I am glad the deal is off between Yahoo and Microsoft. As far as the iphone and Leopard, I hope that Apple deals with Yahoo, Google, and Skype and offers compatibility between iChat, Skype, YM, and Gtalk. Can you imagine if you could switch between these IM servers, all within iChat on your iphone or mac? And Push e-mail availability on the iphone with user choice of .mac, gmail, skype, or yahoo mail upon set-up would be fabulous!

I am also all for Apple re-vamping .mac with lower cost, greater size, better spam protection and a server reliability that Apple could be proud of. Apple, you are never one to settle for less than excellence. The concept of integration of .mac with Apple apps in a smooth, excellent customer experience is such a great goal, so don't stop halfheartedly! There is much more with .mac to be done! And it's already a published credit that your creativity far exceeds Google. :apple:

I do dream, and just maybe one day...
 
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