Google And Microsoft Cross Swords Over Yahoo! 181
watzinaneihm writes "In a blog post Google has called Yahoo/Microsoft merger bad for the future of the internet. It is worried about the number of email and IM accounts this merged entity would control. Microsoft has countered with the argument that Google is actually the big bully in this instance, with most of the search market already tied up. The New York Times, in the meantime, has accused Google of a Microsoft fixation."
Re:Microsoft fixation? (Score:4, Insightful)
In fear of getting utterly cut up... (Score:2, Insightful)
Competition (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft fixation? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft fixation? (Score:2, Insightful)
Convicted monoply abuser much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Competition (Score:4, Insightful)
In this instance, it may not be accurate to say that a big company is swallowing a smaller one. In this case, it might be more accurate to say they are rescuing it. Obviously Yahoo wasn't going to vanish, but in terms of search engine usage, it's nowhere close to Google. This might boost that area and introduce a real rival to Google. In which case it really will increase competition.
Fixation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:In fear of getting utterly cut up... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if Google bought out Yahoo instead, that would be likely to lead a a lot of positive things:
- Some degree of maintenance of the Yahoo brand (MS would obliterate it)
- Promotion of backend opensource architecture (MS would enforce MS products)
- Less likelihood of services being charged for (MS would ruthlessly monetize all Yahoo services as much as possible)
Frankly, I just hate Microsoft's whole money-making diversity-killing business ethos, and you have to realise that a MS buyout of Yahoo would be a pretty terrible thing.
You are forgetting something. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In fear of getting utterly cut up... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In fear of getting utterly cut up... (Score:3, Insightful)
Monopoly. As in one. This means there can only be one at a time. EVAR. Get some education, boi.
Re:In fear of getting utterly cut up... (Score:4, Insightful)
While I agree that Google almost certainly has the lion's share of searches, the article specifically mentioned IM and e-mail. The majority of the non-techy people I know use either MSN, Yahoo!, or AIM for instant messaging and e-mail. The only people I know using Google Talk are my co-workers and one of my non-techy friends.
Microsoft will probably not be very willing to work with Google to integrate Google Talk with either MSN IM or Yahoo IM. This will effectively split IM into two camps. In one camp there will be MSN IM and Yahoo! IM. In the other camp you will have Google Talk, AIM, and
Google is already working to integrate Google Talk with AIM: Time Warner's AOL and Google to Expand Strategic Alliance [google.com]. AIM and
From Google's blog:
Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services?
I too am afraid that Microsoft will attempt to quash any attempts to provide inter operability between different IM providers and will likely succeed since it will control the lion's share of IM accounts. Although Google has the lion's share of the search market, they at least provide or try to provide inter operability with other companies and do not try to lock competitors out of a particular business model.
Why are Google considered a "bully"? (Score:2, Insightful)
What has Google made? The main things would be... A search engine that beats the pants off Microsoft, designed while they were still a startup company? It hasn't really evolved much since that (actually that's a bit to my dismay). Oh, and their ads. Thanks to their (mostly) text-based ads, they found a niche and sucessfully expanded upon it as (surprise, surprise!) people found those ads more likeable than the banner shit spewn forth by competing advertising programs.
Anyway, trying to take a neutral stance on this, I think the thing here is that regardless if Microsoft and Yahoo merges, or Google and Yahoo does it, it will form a company with a very powerful web platform. So maybe neither should be allowed to? But if one should be, I think both should. Microsoft's abuse of their position is another matter than the power in the market this merge would form IMHO, and they should be caught for that stuff when that happens.
It's just like the stories, ma! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Competition (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, which is why a long time ago Yahoo began to diversify their offerings. They're not #1 in any field, but they are reasonably strong players in a dozen or so other fields.
Its their chance to get "silverlight" out there (Score:3, Insightful)
Moving a group is difficult, and it need the owner to want to. If you are a member you could set up a rival, but the chances are you would end up talking to yourself. Now suppose those groups switched to Silverlight (for a richer user experience) and required IE7 running on windows to access. This would be a big downer for any competitive desktops.
Re:In fear of getting utterly cut up... (Score:3, Insightful)
Having a monopoly is fine, abusing it isn't. Google (if you call 2/3rds a monopoly) hasn't been shown to abuse its position, while Microsoft has in the past and very well might again.
a fixation.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft fixation? (Score:5, Insightful)
MS woke up late to the internet. Once they woke up, their attempts at gaining a foothold were more or less unsuccessful. The offer on Yahoo is just them realizing that their web strategy needs a course correction pronto. They've built a good search engine (live.com) and ad-platform, but they can't monetize it right now because nobody goes there. Acquiring Yahoo is one of they ways to solve that problem. Yahoo has other assets that will tie in well with a software+services strategy.
It's really that simple. MS realizes that its business model is under threat, and it's making adjustments before the pain is felt rather than after. No fixation, no envy -- just business as usual.
Re:Microsoft fixation? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only "do no evil" that Google cares about is "do no evil to the stockholders and profits."
Big bully? (Score:3, Insightful)
If MS wants to beat Google at online marketing, they should offer better deals to affiliate sites and advertisers.
Re:In fear of getting utterly cut up... (Score:5, Insightful)
In any case, Google's product isn't a search engine, it's online advertising. And also, in any case, it is pretty much hard to argue that Google gained their search monopoly by making the best mousetrap, and that Microsoft gained their Windows monopoly by strategy, lock-in, user ignorance and marketing. It doesn't invalidate anything, wtf!??!
Google right, Microsoft wrong: and why - (Score:3, Insightful)
Google has become successful by being very good at what it does and does it without abusing its power. Microsoft, well, if the Gentle Reader can't recite a litany of even the most recent abuses, it's useless for me to list them. Go, Google.
Re: Search engine loyalty should be counted (Score:2, Insightful)
Google is my preferred search engine and has been almost exclusively for quite some time now, but I am not tied to them in the same way I am with email and instant messaging. The potential merger between Yahoo and MicroSoft is not something I think would be good for anyone, will it improve searches? nope, MicroSoft spent a huge sum relaunching their search product, and I did try it but I still found google faster and returned the better information. As for advertising revenue, googles advertising model means they make the most money because most people use their service. Should they fail to be the best search engine, they will see drops in revenue to match. So I am not concerned by their advertising side.
I like Yahoo and use several of their services, I fear (which is unfounded except from MicroSoft's reputation and track record) that should they get control of Yahoo it will be a bad day for the internet. I fear it would not take very long before the feeling of being able to trust Yahoo is tarnished (whether fair or not) by Microsoft's reputation and actions.
Sadly with the premium that has been placed on Yahoo it may turn into a hostile take over by Microsoft as if they really want it who is really going to turn down the cash?
My hope is that Yahoo's board say no and Microsoft back off not wanting to add to their negative press and image. This could be good for Yahoo as it may show that Yahoo still has a high value suggesting time could be given to management to make the changes necessary to the business and have time for a return to be seen.
As for competition, 3 big companies trying to do the best search or 2, which gives the best environment for innovation?
Just my 7 pence
We know what Steve Ballmer thinks of Google: (Score:3, Insightful)
Quotes:
At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: "Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google."
Thereafter, Mr. Ballmer resumed trying to persuade me to stay... Among other things, Mr. Ballmer told me that "Google's not a real company. It's a house of cards."
Maybe not fixation, maybe not envy, but SOME kind of mental illness.
Are you really that deluded? (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember, what is a self-evident truth to you is not to everyone. The anti-Microsoft sentiment is almost exclusive to the geek crowd, which is a teeny tiny minority, and it's hardly universal among even us.
Dead souls (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. However this move is possibly their most bone-headed reaction yet. I have no doubt it's straight from the brain of Steve I'm going to fucking kill Google [smh.com.au] Ballmer. Acquiring Yahoo is another attempt to tame the internet and tie it to Windows services, and it will fail as dismally as the last few attempts, because the internet (and Yahoo) is the antithesis of Microsoft.
Users on the web don't like being 'monetized' unless there's something in it for them, and they'll resist attempts by MS to change that balance of power. Those attempts by MS to exploit users are inevitable because it's just not in Ballmer's (or Microsoft's) DNA to let users get something for nothing.
For Microsoft as a company, swallowing Yahoo whole is going to create many more problems than it solves. It will drive the good engineers to Google (very few of Yahoo's people could thrive under the entirely different MS culture), it'll give Microsoft lots of new properties which directly compete with their own offerings, it'll make all the MS Live employees very nervous and trigger more internal turf wars, and finally, it will land MS with servicing lots of disgruntled users on services like Flickr who will desert in droves at the first attempt to corral them into an MS only internet (as MS is prone to do - see ActiveX, IE, Silverlight, etc). Their business model (lock in the users and milk them for profits) isn't under threat, it's past its sell by date; you can't continually abuse your users forever and expect them never to walk away, particularly not if you're trying to operate as a web services company, and I have my doubts that Ballmer et al will ever learn this lesson. They've done too well in the past by applying it to abandon it now.
Still, if you don't work at Yahoo, and you're not keen on Microsoft dominating yet another market, this foolish move is heartening news. Google must be celebrating the beginning of the end of the dark ages of the internet. This will tie up MS for years.
Re:In fear of getting utterly cut up... (Score:2, Insightful)
Evil? (Score:1, Insightful)
However, in another way, Google is FAR less evil than Microsoft. Microsoft dominates markets and then controls them for its own benefit. They always expand by acquiring someone's product and then use it to drive out as much of the competition as possible.
Google, on the other hand, opens things up for customer benefit, like they're doing with Android in the cell phone market. They're working as an anti-Microsoft to compete by opening markets where customers are unhappy and being used.
In other words, I have plenty of reason to prefer Google to Microsoft. Sure, someday they may well lose their leadership and turn evil. It's a very real possibility. But I won't hate them for their success until they use it for evil.
What was that Nietzsche quote Slashdot had at the bottom of every page last week?
"Cynicism is the only way base souls can approach truth."