Microsoft bids for Yahoo!

1 February 2008 - 13:33

So Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo! The question that immediately comes to mind is, why? Microsoft is a rich and successful company. It has spent a fortune developing MSN and Live! What does it hope to gain from buying an ailing rival that has been as much of a failure to oust Google from its position as king of search as Microsoft itself?

Many industry commentators are saying that this move is inevitable because Google is becoming a threat to Microsoft. I don't see it that way, and I don't think most ordinary computer users do. Google doesn't develop operating systems and personal computer software, and it doesn't have this huge installed base of office applications that will lock most organizations into Microsoft practically forever. Microsoft on the other hand has hardly tried to do many of the things Google already does on the web. They are chalk and cheese, and I don't see why one is a threat to the other.

Microsoft, of course, likes to be number one at everything. It's a very poor third at web search, so perhaps it sees an acquisition of Yahoo! as a way of getting even with Google. Again, I don't think so. Individually, neither of them has made much of a dent in Google's popularity, so collectively it's doubtful that they will achieve much more than they have at the moment. One reason, perhaps, is that both Microsoft and Yahoo! are much more overtly commercial. Google, remember, became successful as the search engine that had nothing but its logo and a search box on the page. No ads, nothing more.

I use Google for hours a day. I use the search engine constantly. We use Gmail for all our mail. All our office documents are on Google Docs. Google Webmaster Tools provide lots of useful information about our websites. It's all paid for by ads. But Google has achieved this without making you conscious of it whereas if you use Yahoo! ads are in your face the whole time.

Google has got successful by making everyone think it is on their side. Microsoft and Yahoo! are corporate giants that everyone knows are only in it for the money. I don't think a combined Microsoft / Yahoo! is going to change that perception and make more people like them or be willing to use them.