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Microsoft Walking Away from Yahoo Acquisition
- Thread starter HiRez
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Yeah, I wouldn't call a 70% market share dominant at all...
I can agree to that, although I still personally prefer Google for other reasons (the page is cleaner and not cluttered by garbage, and it's easy to find academic articles via Google Scholar).
Be sure to PM me when someone else takes over Google's spot.
I might be an old man by then and have completely forgotten about this thread.
Oh, you mean like video sharing on the web?
The market has never "spoken" in finality in any industry; the market always changes its mind. Just like how we could find Google in a #2 spot in the coming years, we might find Gmail in the #1 spot as well.
Consumers are not stoic; they will abandon products they don't like, especially when it's as easy as choosing a new search engine.
And I'm not sure where the patronizing "what your friends say" comes into this, but I think I'll defer to other authorities in market predictions as opposed to a random forum member.
This is entirely possible. However, given Google's willingness to branch out into other markets, I think it will take longer for Google to become stale and stagnant.
The fact that good talent goes to work for Google is indicative of a company that can still attract the best and the brightest, and hopefully stave off creative ruts.
Mac owners seem to see what they want and block out what they dont like. Simply put, Microsoft is a company that is capable of doing things that no other company in the world can do. The type of talent and experience that MS has is untouchable. Comments such as "Microsoft has done nothing in the past 5 years worth talking about" is just plain wrong, stupid, and ignorant.
Tanking is a little strong, they've dropped over last year, but once you remove the Vista pre-orders its only $100 million (Out of revenue of $4.5 billion), and since the numbers are rounded to the nearest $100 million, it could be exactly level.
Eric Schmidt wanted Jerry Yang to reject MS. Schmidt got what he wanted, i am sure MS will try to get Yahoo again within 6 months.
On a serious note, would someone like to engage in conversation about anything I have ACTUALLY said on this thread about Microsoft (other than what should be glaringly obvious) that you consider wrong?
Have they not wielded there monopoly unfairly on others? Or did I just dream it? I may have had a glass or so of wine, but my perception of reality is clearly unaffected.
Anyone who cannot see this is clearly on the crack.
Have they not wielded there monopoly unfairly on others? Or did I just dream it? I may have had a glass or so of wine, but my perception of reality is clearly unaffected.
Anyone who cannot see this is clearly on the crack.
Nobody's disputing the dodgy business practices, it's just that most people have absolutely no issues working with MS products. I'm sorry if you have but your experience isn't the norm - most people seem to like having a standard platform which is compatible with nearly 100% of the world's computers.
Not that I'm saying MS products are perfect because they're not, but then neither is anything else.
Yeah, I wouldn't call a 70% market share dominant at all...
The very statement of mine that you quoted used the word "dominant", silly person. Just not "as dominant" as some people seem to think. It's far less dominant, for example, than MS's share of the desktop OS market.
Didn't say it would happen tomorrow. But within five years? Very likely. As you mention, there is never finality, and in consumer tech and media this is more true than most industries.
That is very true, but until the services themselves change, overall trends like "GMail's growth is slowing while Yahoo's is speeding" tend to stay somewhat stable.
This is where you oversimplify to the point of corrupting your assertion. Consumers can in fact be very slow to abandon products when outside forces are at work; for example, Google search being built into browsers.
Then you haven't actually looked at analysis of the markets in question. For example, my statements about GMail's share are consistent across many published reports. Since you apparently keep up with such things... you should be able to find them.
Let's also not forget how often (much more than half the time) these "authorities" are in their predictions. Current analysis, great. Predictions? Every study demonstrates that throwing darts is more accurate. Every. Last. One.
Doubtful. They haven't introduced anything new that is taking the world by storm in years. Their biggest growth move in recent memory was acquiring YouTube, it wasn't anything internal. Google Apps for small businesses may be their next one that actually captures a sizable following, but... that moves them away from the consumer ad market, where there are mountains of money to be made (albeit with fierce competition), to services which afford much less revenue.
There are always MS fanboys in this Mac forum, so don't be surprised. The monopolistic actions of MS are just plain obvious and well-documented to anyone with an IQ above 20.
The problem is when people mix legitimate market dominance (due to competence, expertise or popular preference) with abuse of market power...this is where the PC-fanboys fail miserably when they compare Google with MS.
Mac owners seem to see what they want and block out what they dont like. Simply put, Microsoft is a company that is capable of doing things that no other company in the world can do. The type of talent and experience that MS has is untouchable. Comments such as "Microsoft has done nothing in the past 5 years worth talking about" is just plain wrong, stupid, and ignorant.
I'm sure many on this forum would love to see a list...
Google is essentially a software company, in software the incumbent virtually never loses unless they basically give up development (due to the minimal costs of distribution compared to development). Google almost certainly won't do that.
These are the only cases I know about
- Wordstar vs WordPerfect - thought IBM was porting Office software so made a replica and abandoned their old software.
- WordPerfect, Lotus vs Microsoft Office - didn't release a Windows version quickly enough.
- Quark vs Indesign, Quark didn't release a version for OS X quickly, didn't improve their software.
- Winamp vs iTunes, essentially gave up development, Apple leveraged the iPod.
- Firefox vs Internet Explorer, Microsoft stopped all development of Internet Explorer.
Office 2007, and Exchange come to mind as recent Microsoft products that are good.
I'd disagree. You left out every internet search engine or application platform which was dominant before Google; there are a lot of them. This goes directly to the point, which is that desktop software constructs (where, you are right, installed base has its own sort of inertia) do not generally apply to web services. Google will be an interesting case as it has leveraged into the desktop (in a number of ways, but the only one that is significant in the market is use of their search as the default in some browsers).
Bottom line, it's much easier to use a different website for retrieving data, than it is to adopt a new desktop application and get all my data into it.
Hmm, that's an interesting point about the Internet, and about the ease of switching. Also the more I peer at my list, it does seem there has been a fair bit of changing places in the last 20 years.
Last things first: It's the Yahoo investors who don't want this take-over. But clearly some key people at the top of Yahoo want it, and for them it's only a matter of price.
Having studied Ballmer's personality to a certain extent, And considering how backward M$ is in its acquisitional policies, and bearing in mind their dire need for defensive moves against Google, I'm certain they are hoping to hoover up this 'old school' business - it's a perfect fit.
But when a big ship starts to sink, the lifeboats and lifejackets only save the crew and passengers... nothing saves the ship.
I haven't seen any evidence of "mindless, idiotic fanboys" here. Most of us can see that the best in the industry are heading in one direction with technological advances that people actually want, and M$ is not.
That isn't "mindless, idiotic fanboy" activity, it's seeing things as they actually are, not as they once were or how some people would like them to be. There's no perception issue here. Cold hard facts back this one and it's only going to get worse for the fools who stay on board the creaking wreck.
It's Sunday, forgive him
Having studied Ballmer's personality to a certain extent, And considering how backward M$ is in its acquisitional policies, and bearing in mind their dire need for defensive moves against Google, I'm certain they are hoping to hoover up this 'old school' business - it's a perfect fit.
But when a big ship starts to sink, the lifeboats and lifejackets only save the crew and passengers... nothing saves the ship.
I haven't seen any evidence of "mindless, idiotic fanboys" here. Most of us can see that the best in the industry are heading in one direction with technological advances that people actually want, and M$ is not.
That isn't "mindless, idiotic fanboy" activity, it's seeing things as they actually are, not as they once were or how some people would like them to be. There's no perception issue here. Cold hard facts back this one and it's only going to get worse for the fools who stay on board the creaking wreck.
It's Sunday, forgive him
Like release a coffee table that automatically recognises a mobile phone randomly placed on it, also recognises that it has photos on it and then automatically downloads uncle Bill's porno pics he took of his lady friend... while the neighbour's kids are playing a game on it...
Or, what about a games console - that not only doesn't make any money... it actually loses money!!
Here's the news: ANY STUPID IDIOT CAN DO THAT!
What isn't so easy is designing products in an expanding market, that people actually want, and that actually work. But if you can do all of this AND make money AND grab 28% market share of something like the smart phone market in the first 8 months, you're called Apple.
Other than the iPod, this has never been done in a mature market before.
Or, what about a games console - that not only doesn't make any money... it actually loses money!!
Here's the news: ANY STUPID IDIOT CAN DO THAT!
What isn't so easy is designing products in an expanding market, that people actually want, and that actually work. But if you can do all of this AND make money AND grab 28% market share of something like the smart phone market in the first 8 months, you're called Apple.
Other than the iPod, this has never been done in a mature market before.
message for Jerry Yang
Jerry,
Remember in 1997 there was a company based in Cupertino, CA that nobody thought it would survive. Every company was reluctant to develop software for it's computers and thought that their doom was inevitable. And so 11 years after that company is on its way to conquer the world.
You can reinvent Yahoo don't try to be Google just define what you are and what you want to go. You already hired the outside guy who knew best and almost break you (just like that fruit company), now is your turn to shine and really give Google a run for its money!
good luck
Jerry,
Remember in 1997 there was a company based in Cupertino, CA that nobody thought it would survive. Every company was reluctant to develop software for it's computers and thought that their doom was inevitable. And so 11 years after that company is on its way to conquer the world.
You can reinvent Yahoo don't try to be Google just define what you are and what you want to go. You already hired the outside guy who knew best and almost break you (just like that fruit company), now is your turn to shine and really give Google a run for its money!
good luck
I have to admit I'm tempted to agree, .NET is a shambles (.NET's developers aren't using the built in Collection classes among its numerous flaws), and Vista has had a very poor reception (and according to Paul Thurrott they've had problems getting it to a good quality as far back as Windows 2000), additionally Microsoft's consumer division is an utter failure, at least from a profitability perspective.
Their strengths are Office and the business back end stuff. Exchange is very successful still, but IBM is still fighting in business, and with Office they've focused heavily on the Windows version recently, so they could even lose that. Supporting the wrong OS has been a contributing factor in the demise of many software products before (arguably 2/5 in my list above).
The MP3 Player market wasn't mature before the iPod. Maybe you're thinking of the iPhone
.
Steve Jobs is someone Yang looks up to and admires. He even got Steve to give a motivational talk to Yahoo directors.
Really?
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g9cE_gI-aemyNxZQb7YOBC3rsNlQD90F27QO0
Let's see on Monday, shall we?
So where did you get your degree in psychoanalysis and what rigorous tests have you conducted on Ballmer?
Or are you just guessing?
Good job MS aren't sinking then.
Actually it isn't. That's where the idiocy comes in - people extrapolate linearly based on a market segment that has a definite ceiling.
The cold hard facts are that MS has it's OS and software installed on over 96% of the world's PCs.
So we can be silly about things and say MS is doomed and that Apple will take their place or we can look at things with a sense of perspective and reality and realise that there is room for both, MS will dominate and Apple will do well in its markets.
As far as I see it the good guys won.
Well done to Jerry Yang for playing this one smartly. Who looks like the better leader now? I guess Ballmer was pragmatic, which is something I didn't think we'd see, but Yahoo definitely can score this a win. They never wanted to be taken over, least of all by Microsoft and now they have their wishes.
Microsoft should try buy AOL I reckon next. The corporate cultures the analysts like to talk about couldn't be better matched.
Good guys ? That's a laugh. What's Yahoo's bounty for turning in Chinese dissidents ? Yahoo shareholders will want to lynch that clueless schmuck, Yang. He's toast. He bluffed and everybody, even monkey boy, saw thru it.
In the past 5 years until recently they've been approximately level with IBM, but they have under-performed the market significantly.
Apple could sell OS X to other OEMs if they wanted, it does run on Intel hardware now. Also the software market is an 80/20 situation so you don't need 90% of the market to win.
That is true, really what is best is for stronger competition between the players.
This is one man's assessment.
I'm not impressed by any of these characters.
If what we've just seen was a pissing contest between Ballmer and Yang, it's even worse than I thought.
M$ Search isn't working: Fact
M$ thinks it needs Yahoo: Fact
In reality, they need each other like a brick needs a log in a **** storm.
Yahoo needs Google: Fact
Google doesn't need Yahoo: Fact
And people buy shares in these companies?