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AOL Jumps Into the Ring with Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Apr 10, 2008 02:18 PM
from the now-we-have-a-real-fight dept.
from the now-we-have-a-real-fight dept.
mikkl666 writes "Even just since this morning, there's much to report in the ongoing fight between Microsoft and Yahoo!. After Yahoo! announced yesterday that they are testing Google AdSense, Microsoft reacted with a comment pointing out that 'any definitive agreement between Yahoo! and Google would consolidate over 90% of the search advertising market in Google's hands.' Ironically, they complain that 'this would make the market far less competitive.' Both companies try to team up with strong partners, as well. Yahoo! and AOL are now closing in on a deal to combine their Internet operations. And of course, this morning's news was that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is apparently in talks for a joint bid for Yahoo!"
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mikkl666 writes "In a follow-up to yesterday's story about the struggle between Microsoft and Yahoo!, major Yahoo! shareholder Legg Mason has announced that they are ready to back the company in their effort to keep out of Microsoft's grip. According to portfolio manager Bill Miller, 'the problem is Microsoft blundered with the letter this weekend. Telling the shareholders you're going to take something away from them is not a way to get their support'. Nevertheless, he believes Microsoft will end up paying what it takes to own Yahoo."
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KingAlanI writes "The New York Times website is reporting that Microsoft is trying another angle in its bid for Yahoo: joining up with another behemoth, Murdoch's News Corporation.
This is still very much in the preliminary stage, if anything, but an important development to consider. The idea of Yahoo working with fellow Web giant Google, in a plan to counteract Microsoft's takeover plan, is also discussed."
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News: AOL In Talks With Microsoft to Merge Online Divisions, Says WSJ 143 comments
Ian Lamont writes "Microsoft executives are reportedly meeting with their AOL counterparts to discuss combining the two companies' online divisions. No one from either side is willing to comment, nor has the structure of the supposed deal been worked out.
The original unconfirmed report comes from the Wall Street Journal (password-protected). A few months ago there was talk about AOL teaming up with Yahoo, but that never materialized." The free excerpt at the WSJ link above seems to say about as much as this Bloomberg wire report which refers to it, and the above-linked story at The Standard; this Reuters story indicates that AOL is still courting or being courted by Yahoo!, too.
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This morning's new (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This morning's new (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
LOL. No articles, adjectives, verbs, adverbs reqd. (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft.
The parent comment: "The great slashdot editors apparently thought that Microsoft deserved an entire sentence all to itself."
LOL. It amazes me how little Slashdot editors have learned over the years. Let that be a lesson to anyone who spends time playing video games. You need all your time learning how the world works. There is no time to spend being an angry button-presser.
Or, theory 2, maybe stories about Microsoft only need one proper noun. Articles, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs are understood. No need to repeat words like "evil", "Ballmer", "chair", "monopoly", "Chief of Grief", or "Software's Dr. Death".
That's an idea for a story submission. The entire Slashdot story could be just one word, "Microsoft". I'm sure there would be hundreds of comments. I know I'd post my usual comment: "The problem with Vista is that buyers are becoming technically knowledgeable enough that they don't want to be beta testers of a very unfinished product that requires them to buy more powerful hardware. Remember that Windows XP Service Pack 2 was released only 3 years ago. Before that was 3 years during which every Windows XP customer was a beta tester of a very unfinished product that didn't even handle USB very well."
Parent
DEFENSE! (Score:3)
C'mon. Yahoo is pluckings now. Default to Google, if no Microsoft buy.
Yahoo is dying, Netcraft doesn't need to confirm. (Score:2)
Yup, Yahoo! is now officially dead and the buzzards are just fighting to see who gets to rip off the more choice hunks of meat from the bones.
Sad, but everybody should have seen this coming for at least five years so it is hard to be shocked or anything.
Re: (Score:2)
``The AOL-Yahoo thing reminds me of two men drowning, both grabbing on to each other,'' said Mike Holland, who oversees more than $4 billion at Holland & Co. in New York, including Microsoft shares. ``It usually doesn't end in a pretty way or a smart way or an effective way.''
Re:Yahoo is dying, Netcraft doesn't need to confir (Score:4, Informative)
Yup, Yahoo! is now officially dead and the buzzards are just fighting to see who gets to rip off the more choice hunks of meat from the bones.
Wow, $4 billions in profits [google.com] is dead?
FalconParent
Re:Yahoo is dying, Netcraft doesn't need to confir (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:This morning's new (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Post your original submission here. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Post your original submission here. (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Ironically? (Score:2)
Ironically? I would have said "Cynically", even if for once Microsoft has a valid point!
.
Re: (Score:2)
Fsck Ironically, Cynically... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The meaning of most words has always changed over time. Learn to live with it, or grow to be a grumpy old man.
Re:Ironically? (Score:4, Interesting)
Another example is "a tough row to hoe" (talking about potato farming) turning into "a tough road to hoe" (which makes no sense). The word "road" has not changed meaning, neither has the word "row" -- but people misuse it in a way that makes the word use and the sentence use cease to have any meaningful contribution to the conversation other than to make the speaker/writer sound more knowledgeable to those who don't know what they are actually trying to say.
For an example of a word that has undergone a myriad of transformations over the years, look at the word "nice". For a simpler example in recent history, there's "gay". For a different kind of transformation where the activity referenced has stayed the same but the connotations have changed, look at the word "jazz".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe that's really "a tough road to ho", meaning, it's a difficult street for prostitutes to earn a living on?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
True, bad grammar can mangle meaning though.
IMO: AOL+Yahoo is better than MS+Yahoo (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:IMO: AOL+Yahoo is better than MS+Yahoo (Score:4, Insightful)
The real issue of a MS Monopily in the search market is that they will leverage IE 7+ and Windows to get all the features leving Macs and Linux user using a Sub Par version of the web site.
Why is MS Scared to death of google? It is because they are offering for Free off the web High Quality application that really don't care on what OS or office suite or browser you use. Grandted google docs is a bit clunky but it has potentional for greatness. And like Microsoft sucesss it just needs a competive advantage not be the best product.
Parent
microsoft afraid of moving away from the desktop (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:IMO: AOL+Yahoo is better than MS+Yahoo (Score:5, Funny)
You gotta admit though, "Goohoo" just might be worth it for the name alone.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There are huge swaths of Open Source beyond the Exchange Server Alturnative, such as a large number of Web services and various Webby 2.0-ish type projects. Check it out here: http://developer.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com]. The code snips are extreamly valuble tutorials. All this material will either be flushed or monitized onder Microsoft...
AOL is so cute... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:AOL is so cute... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Did I have a point?
Heh they should all merge (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Late night Fights (Score:4, Funny)
Yahoo stumbles over and tags AOL, who does a Flying forearm smash to the face...
Starting to feel like we need a claymation Deathmatch for this.
Re: (Score:2)
Alta Vista (Score:3, Interesting)
In the mean time, AltaVista is standing quietly in the corner nursing its drink, trying to muster up the courage to ask ChaCha for a dance. Awwwww :(
Do a search on Alta Vista some time, the results have Yahoo! stamped all over them. Whether that's because the results come from Yahoo! or Yahoo! provides any ads or something else I don't know.
FalconYahoo and AOL (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
News Corp. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Would *any* be an improvement? (Score:5, Insightful)
AOL+Yahoo doesn't strike me as being able to produce better services than Yahoo alone could. Or MS+Yahoo. Or any other combination.
The bigger a company is, the more cultural inertia it has, the less willing it is to try something new. Would strapping AOL's "never change anything" mentality to any company make it better? At least Microsoft has occasionally given one of its subdivisions such free-reign that it's been able to innovate (Microsoft mice, xbox360's networking features). Still, MS is mostly extra baggage.
Yahoo by itself is already producing tons of different services [wikipedia.org], on the off-chance that a handful will be successful. Combining with someone larger will certainly slow that down. Would that slowdown be offset by making some more likely to be successful? I doubt it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
AOL+Yahoo doesn't strike me as being able to produce better services than Yahoo alone could. Or MS+Yahoo. Or any other combination.
It does me. You see right now in some markets there is competition, but MS is one of the players and they are breaking antitrust law to artificially gain more market share. When they manage to have enough market, they intentionally break compatibility to undermine competition (illegally). Then they try to use that to move into the next market and gain share not by offering something better, but by tying it to something you already have to use because MS has monopolized it.
Basically, anyone but MS, is a g
Well, crap... (Score:3, Funny)
Anyone else?
I'd also like to be taken into consideration as the father of Anna Nicole's baby.
Creepy AOL+Yahoo merger image (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I never thought I'd say this but.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Delusional boys in Redmond (Score:3, Insightful)
The Redmond boys need to stick to copying software ideas and stay out of the big boy markets where they obviously are limited in mental maturity.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not delusional. Pragmatic.
"IBM and the Seven Dwarfs." Intel and AMD. Microsoft and Apple. Photoshop and "?" The tech sector has never been known for its competitive balance.
But to control 90% of the search based add market has very large implications.
It would be as if one
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (Score:4, Funny)
Yahoo + AOL = Good
Yahoo + AOL + Microsoft = Bad
Yahoo + AOL + News Corp = Ugly
Merging (Score:5, Insightful)
Yahoo Shareholders Could Benefit from this. (Score:3, Insightful)
Looking at Time Warner's annual report you can see that from FY05 to FY07, AOL revenues are down 36%. Conversely, operating income excluding one-time items is up 21%.
This implies that the AOL division has remained profitable primarily by cost cutting, not by natural growth in its business. For example, it took them $7.52 to generate $1 of operating income in 2005. That ratio (revenue/operating income) is now down to $3.89.
Yahoo's business, on the other hand, is the mirror image of AOL's. Revenues from 2005-2007 are up 32.55%, while operating income is down 66.61%. This is mainly due to operating costs increasing 67% in the same period.
So essentially, you have a business, AOL, who sucks at generating revenue but is good at cutting costs, being bought out by a business, Yahoo, that is good at generating revenues (we'll see whether that holds in a recessionary environment), but horrible at keeping costs under control. If the two managements can learn from each other, this combination might actually work out for shareholders.
Of course, for Yahoo employees, it means pack your desks up because heads are rolling if YahAOL is formed.