Yahoo is a poor cousin of what it was, a decade ago. Yahoo does not have the “pioneer of web” status, nor the search dominance – all that they are left with is a company with an incompetent CEO. Google recently killed the search/ads deal with Yahoo, and now, TechCrunch reports that Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang actually pleaded to Microsoft to acquire Yahoo. Below are his actual words:
To this day, I have to say that the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo. I don’t think that is a bad idea at all. At the right price, whatever the price is, we are willing to sell the company. We were ready to negotiate, we wanted to negotiate a deal, and we felt that we weren’t that far apart. But at the end of the day, they withdrew and they since have been very clear about not wanting to buy the company.
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After all those words of denying that a Microsoft-Yahoo deal, and saying that Yahoo should stay alone and continue to innovate, Yang has taken a complete turn from his stance. Though this hurts Yahoo shareholders, I still believe that a Yahoo-Microsoft merger is possible, and that it would be good for everyone. We will have a second front in web search, so to speak – rather than depend only on Google. Google, as innovative as they may be, will soon seem like a minor irritant – for example, when was the last time you saw a killer innovative product from Google? Domination leads to stagnation, and it appears that Google is heading towards it (or has?). The only major impact of Yang’s attitude is that Microsoft will pay significantly less for Yahoo.
Related reading
- Google gains search market share at the expense of Yahoo and Microsoft
- Lenovo clinches deal to buy Microsoft software worth over $1 billion
- Rumours of acquisition by Microsoft pushes up Yahoo shares
- Yahoo and Google provides ways to opt out of ad targeting
I’m waiting for the headline “Yahoo attempts to sell itself on its own auction site. High bid only $12.”