Neowin.net

yeah! and its getting more exciting too!

But yeah wow if this happened I would laugh so hard. I would love it.. and I'd somewhat feel sad for Microsoft.

I actually like how for alot of things, Wikipedia comes up first. I find it often has very useful information (but of course, that can be disputed).

If you didnt know, Yahoo has lost a lot of its market share. Its come to that point in time where they must merge to remain in existence

I'm sorry but if you want Wikipedia results then go to Wikipedia. It's simply a way for Google to mask that the results aren't as relevant as they should be and a way to lower the priority of blog posts. I'm all for Wikipedia being included where relevant but so many articles are very poorly written / sourced and yet they always seem to take the top 3 on Google.

I completely agree about the Google returning price comparison websites, highly frustrating. The Wikipedia thing doesn't bother me too much, because it's usually a decent starting point for a search result.

I say they'd go with Google as the choice is a no brainer, either be given a wad of cash and still be second to Google or join with Google and control ~72.5% of the search market (combined) that amount of control would easily be worth more then the $44.6 billion MS is offering, of cause this is just my opinion so take with a grain of salt.

Last edited by Xerxes on 04 Feb 2008 - 02:45

I agree with you that it is bad if Yahoo! is bought by either MS or Google (antitrust and all that....)
but MS... they really have everything. They're insanely big, they have windows, games, a bunch of software, a gaming console, keybaords, mice, a web browser, etc. etc. etc. and now they want more... A company big like that should never be allowed to grow even more. And if you replace the word Microsoft by Apple, or anything else, it still applies by the way.
Competition is good and always welcome.

google is INSANELY big too, and you are talkign about differnt markets, it's like saying Sony should only make TV's and leave making consoles to nintendo adn other devies to someone else. (or only make electronics and leave the music industry to others) your even separating a web browser from other software....and are forgettgin they ALREADY do search...

so at what point do you decide that a company can't 'grow' anymore???

when it comes down to it a lot of smaller companies are owned by bigger companies, and there are big companies that are owned by even bigger companies it just isn't as obvious..

i actually think it woudl be good if MS bought it as it woudl make for a competitive SEARCH company, as it stands there are no SEARCH companies that really compete with google..

A "business alliance" isn't the same as being bought.

Microsoft brought this upon themselves by making this hostile bid towards Yahoo. The entire tech industry should come to Yahoo's defense.

I doubt GE is a "business alliance". They make all sorts of appliances, generate and distribute electricity, transportation equipment (land, air, etc), and they even have their hand in television, movies, and financial services.

How will Yahoo be hurt by this? They are slowly losing market share, it seems. As for the most obvious consquence of a buyout, are the job cuts; however, it seems that job cuts were already on the way (http://www.informationweek.com/software/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205909195&cid=RSSfeed_TechWeb). How could this be a bad thing?

It just seems that a little "double standard" it coming from all of this, don't you think? It is fine, if Google gets +70% with Yahoo, but it isn't okay for Microsoft to even have +30%.

IRONIC++ Didn't they just say:

"Google emphasized that the interests of Internet users should come first, and that serious questions about the possible acquisition need to be asked."

Google is really starting to disgust me. But they still have good search results.

It's a good thing most SANE people see it differently

i take it you assume you are sane.. what is so bad about having a competitor for google, as it stands neither MS or yahoo really compete or do you think google shoudl get it and increase their dominance of the search market even more?

Yes I do believe Google would do a better job at it than MS, MS has proven that they can't do many things well and really the only thing they do well now is Peripherals and Game systems, also MS taking over Yahoo will put them under even more scrutiny from both American and European anti-competitive regulators, while Google would be seen as consolidating the search market

i dont think its about who will do a better job, google already does a pretty damn good job at this stuff, MS dosnt and either does yahoo, put them togeterh and you may just finally get some competition for google... dont get me wrong though i use google for search..

MS is bad at makign OS's thats why they dominte the OS market, i have used MAC OS and linux and i prefer windows, it really is a personal preference.. i also disagree on the game systems, the 360 has had a lot of issues, a lot more than the PS3 or Wii..

so even though google say MS buying yahoo is anticompetitive, they dont believe that it is anticompetitive if they take it over?? this is just ridiculous as google will have such a domination of search noone will be able to compete..

how the hell is MS takign over yahoo more anti-competitive than google taking it over, seeing MS takign it over will still not even give them enough market to beat google, yet google takign it over will give them about 75% of the market

I agree, Google does not need Yahoo. They just want to kill it off and have less competition, not to mention keeping Microsoft from getting it. Microsoft wants it to compete with Google. The best thing for consumers would be for Yahoo to remain a seperate company, but following that it would be for Microsoft to get it. The worst thing for us would be for Google to get it.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't a 39% dive. Link?

"At the same time, there are signs Google's own business may be slowing. The company's fourth-quarter profits were below analysts' forecasts, and yesterday the company's shares tumbled $7.05, or 39.7 percent, on the news of Microsoft's offer for Yahoo. "It would be premature for us to comment at this time," said Matt Furman, a spokesman at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif."

REFERENCE

You might also look at http://stockgroup.financialpost.com/sn_ove...asp?symbol=GOOG how does 48% grab ya?

Odd, I couldn't find that drop on another financial site. That's one hell of a drop!

You need to learn how to do both math and read stock information (as does the person writing the boston.com article).

Google's share price dropped $48.40, NOT 48%. That reprecents a drop of about 8%, not 39.7%. The stock would have needed to drop about $250 for the loss to approach 48%.

You are right, my bad for not checking the math. Whatever! an 8% drop in one day is still not good.
Also, the fact remains in Dec. the share price was $718 - Friday less than 2 months later it is $515.
It has definitely lost nearly a huge chunk of its value.
What do you care anyway - it won't directly affect you for quite a while, unless you actually bought any.
In which case - Bwahahahahahahahahahah!

I really don't find any contradiction in there, assuming that you know companies, and that you've read the same article as I did.

Yeah, I don't understand why everyone so far is saying the opposite, either.

Neowinians, I'm losing faith in you.

Same. Is it really that hard to understand the difference between a takeover and alliance to prevent a takeover?

What Google are trying to do is keep Yahoo and MS separate. Obviously for Google it is so they don't have a larger competitor, but it's good for the consumer too as 3 competitors is better than 2.

Depends; 3 competitors sharing 33% marketshare is better than 2. 3 competitors, one with 60% marketshare (and gaining) while the other two are at 20% (and losing), are not better than 2; the two with lower marketshare obviously don't pose any sort of appreciable challenge to the one with 60% share (ie: they might as well not exist).

You might want to educate yourself before making foolish posts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!#Pr...ts_and_services

Can you explain this monopoly that Google has? I have never paid Google a bean for any of their services. When they start charging I'll switch, simple as that. All they are is an advertiser, with a few very nice free services. Microsoft have had MSM (originally called Microsoft Network) from the days I was beta testing Windows 95 (1994)! What have they been doing in the 7 years Google has been in existence? Yahoo have been around even longer, and Altavista longer still Webcrawler before that.

I don't see how Google has prevented all these companies from becoming top dog other than others, lack of vision. If you wish to advertise with Google's mighty user base, pay up, or switch to someone else. I don't see Google using lawyers to strangle others, or stealing others ideas, unlike a company I could mention

So you would prefer it stays that way and let Google have free reign over the web?

No one said that. But no one, except maybe two or three Microsoft fanatics on Neowin, would want Yahoo bought by MS. How could THAT possibly be a good thing? It would be a disaster for consumers and the tech industry.

We need more choice, not more duopolies (Nvidia & ATI, or Intel & AMD), or monopolies (Microsoft, AT&T).

I hope some foreign search engines will be able to compete with US ones soon. I mean someone besides China.

It's becoming infinitely worse in my opinion, more and more spam results or things like "these search terms only appear in links pointing to this page". WTF is that all about. If I search for "purple dogs" I want pages returned with info about them, not completely unrelated pages that other pages about purple dogs linked to.

So it's ok for Google to buy other companies or branch out into other markets, but if Microsoft tries to compete with them they are evil. Got it...

Google is not buying Yahoo (TFA talks about a "business aliance" )

Also if MS buys them they would stop funding projects like Zimbra and php, which wouldn't happen if they sided with google.

Yes. And as Microsoft pointed out, Google is the dominant player for web searching and advertising. They are just throwing out childish (and groundless) flamebait because they are scared of competing against Microsoft.

How the hell is the merging of two companies driving competition and diversity? Google is discussing a business alliance; Microsoft is going for the jugular with a hostile take over. If MS was truly interested in competition, they should compete against Google with better products rather than resorting to cannibalistic business practices. The consumer is the one who loses in the end especially with how MS treats sectors they monopolize. The more diversity there is, the more innovation and competition there is in a market.

"If you can't beat them, join them." Google advertises on Yahoo sites, Yahoo advertises on Google sites. As opposed to Yahoo being strongarmed out of business and their board of directions fired by Microsoft. Yeah. Tough choice to make there.