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Yahoo Rejects Microsoft Search Offer

Posted by Zonk on Sat May 13, 2006 06:28 AM
from the unfriendly-business dept.
Microsoft Businesses The Internet Yahoo!
mytrip writes to mention a Financial Times article detailing Microsoft's apparent interest in Yahoo!, and Yahoo!'s rude reaction to their interest. From the article: "The fight is on between the three internet search titans, after Yahoo's Terry Semel laid down the gauntlet to Microsoft saying the software giant's recently elevated ambitions in the search arena were a lost cause. 'My impartial advice to Microsoft is that you have no chance. The search business has been formed,' he said in an interview with the New Yorker's Ken Auletta."
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[+] NYT on Terry Semel of Yahoo! 33 comments
prostoalex writes "With the recent CEO smackdown and Steve Jobs profiled by BusinessWeek, The New York Times talks about yet another high-tech CEO - Terry Semel of Yahoo! An outsider to the industry, Terry Semel currently leads the global company with the broadest reach. NYT looks into Yahoo!'s most valuable assets - technology produced by its employees, and covers many Yahoo! products, some of which, like Yahoo! Search, launched 2 years ago, trail only Google in the amount of users."
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  • Google? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by biocute (936687) on Saturday May 13 2006, @06:35AM (#15324177) Homepage
    "The search business has been formed", that was what I heard when Yahoo was teh king, and guess who came in and took over the search business?

    • Re:Google? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jellomizer (103300) * on Saturday May 13 2006, @07:19AM (#15324250)
      The only problem was Yahoo was the king before it became king before the Internet became common place .
      First you take an idea that someone else made and mature it.
      You become the King until the market stabilizes.
      Then someone else takes your place for the stable market.

      It is not fair but that is the way it seems to go.

      Like GUI OS's
      Xerox made the GUI Interface.
      Apple took the idea and matured it.
      Apple becomes the king of GUI
      Then Microsoft comes and takes your ideas and wins for the stable GUI market.

      It is not always about quality it is just about having the charm to get most people to use it over something else.
      Like Google seemed to load a little faster then Yahoo so people with dial-ups used it more. And when the internet became common place and mature a lot of people were still using dialup.

  • That quote brings to mind the phrase.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by spiritraveller (641174) on Saturday May 13 2006, @06:36AM (#15324180)
    "famous last words"

    And I'm not sure who I dislike more at this point.

    At least Microsoft hasn't been handing political prisoners over to the Chinese government [slashdot.org].

  • That sound bite is gonna come back and bite ya (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Irish_Samurai (224931) on Saturday May 13 2006, @06:37AM (#15324187)
    "My impartial advice to Microsoft is that you have no chance. The search business has been formed,"

    I dunno, that sounds similar to the boasts made by almost every large company head right before they get their ass handed to them by someone.
  • I hate Yahoo search, I REALLY hate MSN search... If they had combined I may have spontaneously combusted from the new, dangerously high levels of hatred coursing through my veins. That was close.
      • For me, personally, it's that I can run a particular search query, and if I don't get the exact results I'm looking for, I know how to tweak it so that google will give me the results I need. I could spend 15 minutes on yahoo tweaking search strings to get the exact page/nugget of info, but Google and I are old friends, he knows exactly what I want, if not the first time, than the second. Yahoo or MSN is often times like asking the crazy guy on the corner for directions to the super market. You'll get the g

  • Transcription of dialogue... (Score:5, Funny)

    by terrahertz (911030) on Saturday May 13 2006, @06:40AM (#15324192)
    MS Rep: Hey baby, how 'bout lettin' big daddy in on a piece o' that action?
    Y! Rep: Oh no you dit'in! Oh no you dit'in! (gesticulates the talk-to-the-hand)

  • Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nagora (177841) on Saturday May 13 2006, @06:43AM (#15324197)
    It may be that Yahoo's search engine is better than MS's (just as a kick in the balls is better than being shot in the head) but to say that the world's richest company has no chance in any field just shows that the speaker is an idiot.

    TWW

      • Hate to burst your bubble, but Microsoft is not even in the top 50 richest companies. I am assuming you meant Bill Gates being the richest person.

        No, I meant their huge cash reserve. Unless you count banks then MS is pretty well the richest, and unlike banks it's their money too.

        TWW

  • My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google (Score:4, Insightful)

    by guacamole (24270) on Saturday May 13 2006, @06:44AM (#15324199)
    Be very afraid. One thing that sets Microsoft apart from many of its competitors is persistence when it comes to products and technologies that are important to Microsoft's core business. Add to that the fact that MS has a huge multi-billion $$ war chest and their dominant position in the operating systems and web browsers and you see that they have not only the will but also the resources to be persistent. This battle won't be over any time soon.
    • That's probably true. But I can't help but thinking that unlike every other problem Microsoft has dealt with, search is different.

      Search is hard.

      Look at every other product that Microsoft made. It doesn't really require any genius-level intuition to solve or anything like that. It's ordinary, straightforward implementations that are being done. Back in the day it would have taken a genius, but Microsoft got to borrow ideas that have been published by other people. Further, they don't even do it well. Their primary concern is getting it done and filling it with lots of features. That's not going to work for search.

      I would put it to you that it is very difficult to come up with a way of doing something that works well when the thing you want to do is hard, and that, in general, throwing money at it doesn't help.

      If you are to prove to me that Microsoft's giagantinormous size is going to do it for them, then tell me about their track-record of genius.
      • I actually disagree with the premise that "search is hard". Search at its core is exceedingly simple. Scaling this can get a bit tricky, but that has really already been solved by all current major search engines. The hard part I assume you mean is the filtering and ranking of results. Even that isn't some magic vodoo anymore. There are many well known tools accomplishing this. From from more complex topics like Bayesian filtering, to simple use of web statistics, and even "trust measures" (if the New
        • Scaling this can get a bit tricky, but that has really already been solved by all current major search engines.

          And here is the premise with which we disagree.

          Google does a good job, but it's difficult to find what you're looking for in any of the other major search engines.

          And I'm positive you can't get results like theirs with simple bayesian filtering.

          What you don't seem to be grasping is that search is artificial intelligence. It's saying "given these search parameters, what am I REALLY looking to find?

        • I could probably switch to Yahoo or MSN search tomorrow and not really notice the difference.

          You'll look long and hard for a slow-loading Google page. I suppose you could bloat your own. You won't find even PNGs, let alone blinking banners or flash. What happens when you follow that nice "More..." button on MSN and Yahoo? After Google, theirs just seem lame. Got a box that will run Google Earth? Google do awe-inspiring things and give them away. Sure they're going to make money. That's how they s

          • You'll look long and hard for a slow-loading Google page. I suppose you could bloat your own. You won't find even PNGs, let alone blinking banners or flash.

            Check out these if you haven't for awhile MSN [msn.com] and Yahoo [yahoo.com]. I don't think you'll see anything like your talking about.

            I certainly love Google and thier practices, but I was just speaking about search technology and how they are basically identical (see my post to reply just before yours).

            BTW, don't talk about Google Earth like that, your just asking f
        • Read my comment. Third paragraph, third sentence.

          Back in the day it would have taken a genius, but Microsoft got to borrow ideas that have been published by other people.

          No one's published how Google is doing search. It's a trade secret. It won't be hard the moment that they do.
          • Bad news, dude. It's not at all hard to work backwards from the Google or Yahoo results to figure out what they're doing -- it's just tedious. You can't buy "hard", but you can buy "tedious". Microsoft is really, really good at tedious.

            • Re:RTFC (Score:3, Interesting)

              by joeykiller (119489)
              You might say Microsoft's good at tedious, but you have to hand it to them: This time they're really trying something new. Where the other search engines tries to achieve quality and relevance trough variations of link cardinality, anchor text, page rank (how many and how highly valued pages links to a page), etc., Microsoft's trying neural networks and some kind of "artificial intelligence".

              So far MSN Search/Windows Live Search is worst of the three big players when it comes to relevance. But they're not
        • True, but disk compression never had to deal with applications that were written specifically to change the compression rate of certain files... I mean, you can always write better compression software, but what that software is working on is not actively trying to skew results either way, if you get my drift.
        • You seem to have forgotten Microsoft's 'solution' to disk compression. They ripped-off Stak's code. Got caught and paid for it, too. I doubt Google will give them the same opportunity.
    • Add to that the fact that MS has a huge multi-billion $$ war chest and their dominant position in the operating systems and web browsers and you see that they have not only the will but also the resources to be persistent

      Thats exactly why Yahoo have decided not to do a deal with Microsoft at this time. Any search engine with a significant share of the market will see whats happened to Microsoft "partners" in the past. If MS get a foothold, next step for them will be to use their desktop leverage, partne

    • MS has made a big deal about how they are going to invest in R&D but just like any IT related industry the day for absorbing customer attraction is over. Google has made its money, now they are big and successful and there isnt a damn thing MS can do about it.

      Just like the fact the general market has chosen to use Windows the general market has chosen Google to search with. It doesnt really matter if you have a MSN search tool in the corner of your address bar because at the end of the day even myself w
    • I don't even really look at Yahoo as a search engine anymore. Back when I had SBC as my internet provider, they were the content provider of choice for SBC. I suppose that's when my view of them started to change.

      Other things like Launchcast, albeit Windows-only, only reinforce that view.

      Obviously there's a search engine behind it to bring it all together, but I honestly see them as more a content provider.

  • Really why should they? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jellomizer (103300) * on Saturday May 13 2006, @06:48AM (#15324206)
    don't see what Yahoo really has to gain with MSN? I like google so I use it. My Girl Friend prefers Yahoo. And I am sure someone out there prefers MSN. But most of the sites they all have. If I find one search method is becoming to tedious then I use an other one. Combining Yahoo and MSN would hurt Yahoo. First there is the people who just don't use MS. Stuff when possible which would be around 10% of the population (Figuring most Linux users and Apple users alternative OS users, and windows users who are afraid of Microsoft dominance but only know windows. ). Yahoo will need to split their advertising dollars with MS. Any software improvements probably wont affect the bottom line. And it will do nothing against Google. Google is a verb in the english language now. When the company branding becomes imbedded in the culture it is difficult to change it. Like Jello and Kleenex other companies can sell similar products but the culture still thinks of the brand name. Going with Yahoo will only benefit MS. And at best Yahoo will loose nothing, but in reality yahoo my loose more.

  • So.. Yahoo rejects Microsoft. In other news.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by SirFozzie (442268) on Saturday May 13 2006, @06:49AM (#15324207)
    A non-standard precipitation warning has been issued for the Redmond, WA area, as it is expected to be raining chairs for the next few days, or until Steve Ballmer runs out of furniture..

  • Pretty obvious stance... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jugalator (259273) on Saturday May 13 2006, @06:54AM (#15324215) Journal
    The only search engine with less traffic than Microsoft's is AOL's, and a number of more obscure ones.

    Yahoo is receiving more than twice their traffic, and likely ad revenue potential as well.

    There'd be a lot to win for Microsoft if joining forces with Yahoo, but I'm not sure Yahoo would sacrifice their image. If their managers have any sense, they know it's important to preserve your identity, especially if you're quite far ahead.

    This just looks like a cry for help from Microsoft's side, now that their second (?) "Google Killer" with "Live Search" (a very idiotic name too; why not "Microsoft Search"?) has probably failed just as bad as their updated MSN Search they did a few years back.

  • Homepage (Score:5, Funny)

    by therage96 (912259) on Saturday May 13 2006, @07:00AM (#15324223)
    I predict this will probably appear in the news in the next few weeks.

    "And in a surprising move, Microsoft has chosen to make live.com the default homepage any new Internet Explorer installation."

    Microsoft 1, Yahoo -screwed-
    • Why is that a problem, since the default page is already msn.com, which has a MS Search right at the top of the page?

      Should be even less of an issue, as the default firefox homepage is google.com

      Should you not also have added to your comment "Firefox 1, yahoo -screwed-"?

  • 'My impartial advice to Microsoft is that you have no chance. The search business has been formed,'

    Because Microsoft's entire history hasn't been one of moving in to an area where other people have worked out how to do things and then doing them better/cheaper/faster.
    • Microsoft's business is Office and Windows. Those make a ton of $$$$.

      Microsoft loses money on almost everything else.

      Every market they've tried to move into and make money on, they've failed.

      They did pretty well against Netscape - giving away the browser seemed to kill their market completely, and thus kill Netscape. But Microsoft didn't make money on that. They lost money and killed a competitor.

      But Google has a different model. They run internet advertising on the back of the best internet search engine.
          • I think that is why they are number one. They don't send any ads at some before they search, and load fast.

            Once they search, they throw unobtrusive ads at the searching user. Those are highly targetted, very valuable, ads.

            When you go to msn.com and there is a blank page with a search box, you'll know they get it.
          • And it was FAST! Other searches were very VERY slow at the time. Google was like a breath of fresh air...

  • Specialize (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bios_Hakr (68586) <xptical AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday May 13 2006, @07:30AM (#15324263) Homepage
    While MS might have problems breaking into a full search system, there is a ton of room for a company that can do one thing really well.

    Look at ISO Hunt. They picked an area and really cached in on it.

    My advice to MS: become the best video game search engine out there. It'd be really easy. Have a box to search and buttons to look for reviews, purchace, FAQs/walkthroughs, and cheats.

    Hell, you could pick anything. But do one thing and do it really well.
    • You can already do that using Live.com macros.
      I use it to search for product reviews and excluding the pages that are meant to sell the products.

  • Breaking News (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 13 2006, @07:47AM (#15324295)
    Terry Semel of Yahoo! corporation was found dead this morning. At this point the cause of death is being attributed to a chair leg that is still lodged deeply inside the victim's skull. Police have ruled out accidental death and are compiling a list of suspects.

  • How are you gentlemen (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dachannien (617929) on Saturday May 13 2006, @08:08AM (#15324316)
    My impartial advice to Microsoft is that you have no chance,' [Yahoo's Terry Semel] said.

    When asked for comment, Google's representative, CATS, said, "Ohhh, no, no, no. All your search are belong to us."

  • Bull (Score:2, Insightful)

    by slashmojo (818930)
    Bull, meet red rag..
  • Guess we know there's only one thing left for Microsoft to do... buy Google.
  • So just because Yahoo has decided they can't compete with Google and will be happy to just maintain what marketshare they have, no one else can compete with Google either? Awfully bold statement from someone who has given up.

    http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/256748_yaho o24.html [nwsource.com]

    Yahoo! Inc., one of the first Internet search companies, has capitulated to Google Inc. in the battle for market dominance. "We don't think it's reasonable to assume we're going to gain a lot of share from Google," Chief Fi

  • Second toughest guy from bar pokes brown kodiak bear with stick.

    Second toughest guy quotes "You have no chance bear, the tough person in bar market is formed"

    Meanwhile the toughest buy in the bar is buying a shotgun and bear hunting license, and getting to a safer shooting distance.

    • Does anyone really doubt that MS can (and will) scream ahead of Yahoo in market share in the coming years?

      Yes. I live down the street from their new office in Santa Monica. They're competing well with Google on recruiting the sharpest people from other regional employers. Including three of my new neighbors who recently moved down here from Seattle.

      Google isn't the only one successfully recruiting hot-shit developers from MS.

      Regards,
      Ross

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