Google May Scrap Yahoo Deal 49
JagsLive points out a Reuters story which suggests that Google may walk away from its deal with Yahoo instead of accepting possible antitrust limitations from the government. The ongoing investigation of the deal by the Department of Justice has caused new concerns to be raised over whether the two companies have adequately addressed issues such as privacy and competition. From Reuters:
"'Are they more serious about walking away? Yes. Have they decided? I'm not sure,' one source told Reuters on Friday. 'Yahoo wants the deal, and they're willing to have Google sign anything at the Justice Department to have them do it.' ... Part of the impetus of Google's walking away could be Yahoo's talks with Time Warner Inc about buying the content and advertising operations of its AOL unit. Google initially struck the deal with Yahoo as a way to fend off Microsoft Corp's unsolicited bid. Yahoo and AOL are conducting due diligence to see what a combined company would look like."
Re:It's sad.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Google actually has a stronger foothold in its primary market than Microsoft does in its, at the moment. Google is not embattled by free alternatives to its main product line that are catching up rapidly.
If you ask me, Google is the company that we have the most to fear from at the moment, given that they are the biggest pushers (quietly) of "cloud" computing, which is essentially an effort to remove control from you of the computer on which you work.
You can be as much of a fanboy as you like, but accept it or not, Google is a business which has a very large interest in turning you into a controllable revenue asset.
What was Microsoft's top offer? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's sad.. (Score:2, Interesting)
However, innovation in search is not going to come from Google, Yahoo or Microsoft. Corporations are far too bureaucratic, conservative, and slow to develop new ideas. If you work in a corporation it can take you months to get approval to even start work on a new idea. No, It is going to come in the same way it happened for Google. Two guys working in their garage, with a damn good idea. These guys can pick it up and run with it, much faster than any corporation ever could.
Google actually lets its developers use 20% of their time to work on own projects...which is an emulation of the twho guys in a garage I think...It leads to innovation and many of the best google services were born this way.
And what about the employees? (Score:3, Interesting)
What's really sad is that Yahoo's CEO Jerry Yang had a lot of support from employees who feared that Microsoft would can them. The threat of their revolt was in part what drove Microsoft away.
Now he's turning around and repaying them by announcing a second around of layoffs that will total about 10% of the workforce. Source. [cnet.com] Looks like everyone got the raw deal out of this. It makes you wonder if Yang even had a plan for Yahoo post-merger.