Microsoft's Failed Yahoo Bid May Kill Their Search Aspirations
by Liam Bailey
2008-05-05 18:02:33 **opinion**
After their failed Yahoo bid, Microsoft is left pondering its next step. It is widely thought that Yahoo was Microsoft's only chance of competing with Google, now making mincemeat of Microsoft, both in market share of searches and online (Pay-per-click) advertising.
There is now talk of Yahoo partnering with Google which I think would be harmful for us as searchers, though perhaps only marginally more harmful than a Microsoft Yahoo takeover. The latter is still possible, analysts point to Oracle's failed bid for their rival BEA, which was upped into a successful bid some months later.
If Microsoft fails to obtain Yahoo, I don't think they have any hope of even becoming stiff competition to Google. If Yahoo partners with Google, Microsoft may just pack its bags and go back to making operating systems.
I'll be honest with you, I don't know why but I just don't like Windows products. I am a firm user of Windows and I probably always will be, but it is because of the bad press Windows has received, that I use it more through habit and fear of change, and it is the same bad press that prevents me from using any of their online endeavours, including Live Search, Hotmail, and Messenger – I just don't use Microsoft online.
Having said that, when everyone started using Google for searches, I had already fallen in love with Ask Jeeves, after seeing adverts for the SE on TV, it took me ages to convert to the search giant Google, but I am now a fully paid member of the Google fan-club.
If I'm honest I would rather see Microsoft takeover Yahoo, because to be honest I still think Google would win the battle of the search engines. As my job involves writing content for search engine optimisation, focussing on Google, I feel a Google-Yahoo merger may force me to go back to the drawing board, whereas a Microsoft-Yahoo takeover may affect me very little. But like everyone else, I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
