Hi, I'm Michael Mistretta, a student passionate about technology, photography, and design. Welcome to my online home where I write about technology, reviews, and my thoughts and opinions on technology-related matters. The big news today is Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo!. This comes with little surprise, as many were expecting Yahoo! to get acquired sometime this year. They were a dying company with little innovation, and didn’t have what it took to go up against Google. Microsoft, on the other hand, is a company equally as big as Google, if not bigger. When it comes to computers, Microsoft is the obvious market leader. However, Microsoft wants to get into the ad business. They want to take down Google’s monopoly on online ad sales. They’ve tried by placing a $240 million stake in Facebook - the biggest online social network. They have won over other big social networking sites like Digg, to use their ad system instead of Google’s. Now with Microsoft’s attempt to acquire Yahoo!, they are going head-to-head with the king of the Internet - Google.
The question in people’s minds this morning is, “What will happen to Flickr and Del.icio.us and all the Web 2.0 sites that Yahoo acquired?”. “Will Microsoft ruin them?” “Will they create a Microsoft Flickr 2008 Ultimate Pro edition?” I really believe that Microsoft and Yahoo! are very similar in this respect. When Yahoo! acquired Flickr, there was already an established user-base. Yahoo! didn’t drastically change anything about Flickr. And I don’t believe Microsoft will either.
Think of it. Now that Microsoft owns Flickr, do you really think they will abandon their Windows Live Photo Gallery service or Windows Live Spaces? No. While Microsoft will own all these Web 2.0 services, I don’t think Microsoft actually knows what to do with them. Yahoo! was a previous competitor to Microsoft, and they have too many overlapping product lines.
What will be interesting however, is how other companies respond. Apple, has partnered with Yahoo! to have push email to iPhones through yahoo.com email addresses. Will Microsoft still continue to allow that? And on the iPhone, people have the option between choosing Google or Yahoo search. Note that there is no Windows Live option. I wonder how soon Yahoo will disappear off that list as well. And as of 2007, Yahoo was the most popular free email service - beating both Gmail and Windows Live mail. Will Microsoft change the @yahoo.com emails to @live.com? Or will they just continue to use the Yahoo! brand?
While this is undoubtedly one of the biggest tech acquisitions in the past year, I don’t think much will change for end-users. While Microsoft will own Yahoo! and all their assets, I don’t think there will be much change. Yahoo.com will continue to exist, but it will just have a different owner. This is just Microsoft’s sad (yet expensive) attempt at competing with Google. I don’t see it going anywhere. Let’s see how Google responds.
In other news, Google’s stock is down $50 today.
I would like to agree with you that Microsoft won’t really change anything, but I just can’t see that happening—at least not with the Yahoo! brand. Maybe flikr and del.icio.us will get by unscathed for a while. But the nature of these business deals is as much acquiring users as it is the technology and infrastructure assets.
That said, the deal might not even get approved by the government.
Comment by Karl Winegardner — February 1, 2008 @ 12:12 pm
Sweet comment system, by the way.
Comment by Karl Winegardner — February 1, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
Actually Yahoo did drastically change Flickr. For a while, they left separate logins. Login with your Yahoo ID, or your old Flickr ID. Later, they changed this and only allowed you to use a Yahoo ID. I haven’t use Flickr since then. I’m glad that they never this the same thing to del.icio.us, I wouldn’t know where to go if they did.
I really hope Microsoft doesn’t ruin anything like this.
And remember that so far it’s only a bid, I don’t believe it has been officially accepted by Yahoo.
Comment by David — February 1, 2008 @ 3:19 pm
@Karl I highly doubt the government would consider this a monopolistic move, especially with a big player such as Google around. Also, Microsoft is not going to close yahoo.com. They very well may have it redirect though to yahoo.microsoft.com as they did with http://msn.ca
@David I would really not like having to use a Windows Live ID to sign into Flickr. We’ll see what Microsoft does…
Comment by Michael Mistretta — February 1, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
I really don’t know if Microsoft is capable of leaving a good service alone without ruining it. Have they acquired anything else that they have left alone yet?
Comment by MrBobDobolina — February 2, 2008 @ 12:57 am
On the bright side, this will force other companies like Google to innovate and create more stuff. And that’s what its all about in the end right? However nothing, nothing can justify Flickr. Microsoft is going to ruin it. I just know it.
Comment by Timothy Andrew — February 2, 2008 @ 9:24 am
Actually, Flickr has a large enough user base that either Microsoft will be forced to leave it alone and not ruin it, or the Flickr community will create a new “Flickr” somewhere else.
Comment by MrBobDobolina — February 2, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
@MrBobDobolina - Microsoft certainly doesn’t have the best track record - look at what they did to Hotmail (at least we have Gmail) and numerous other ventures.
There is lots of potential if you think about the potential with MS dominance in desktop applications and home integration. The real question is can they realize this potential without destroying what exists in Flickr today?
On an unrelated note, you may have forgotten to celebrate Vista’s 1 year anniversary on Jan 30th.
Comment by Krista Neher — February 2, 2008 @ 1:28 pm
I think it’s funny that the things we think are the best about Yahoo (Flickr, Del.icio.us, etc) are probably the things that Microsoft cares about the least. To me,Yahoo isn’t very valuable. But Flickr and Del.icio.us are. They are both in the sidebar of my site.
I teally hope Microsoft doesn’t touch them.
Comment by Michael Mistretta — February 2, 2008 @ 1:32 pm
I got a kick out of this Michael:
“Microsoft, on the other hand, is a company equally as big as Google, if not bigger.”
Microsoft is _much_ bigger than Google. In fact, Microsoft’s market cap for Feb 1 is $283 billion, whereas Google’s market cap is only (relatively speaking, of course) $161 billion. So Microsoft is roughly 76% bigger than Google.
But this kind of puts things in perspective. Google must be doing something right, if an established company the size of Microsoft, with their huge pool of talent and cash, cannot compete with a relatively new company such as Google.
Comment by James — February 3, 2008 @ 1:21 am
That would be horrible. I kinda of feel like everything that Microsoft touched turns into crap…. ( I really don’t like microsoft lol)
Comment by Gabe Jacobs — February 3, 2008 @ 1:51 am
Couple things: Facebook isn’t the biggest “online social network” - Myspace is. Facebook’s second.
And it’s true, they do have a lot of overlapping services…it’s interesting then to see what they’ll do
And I don’t think they’d change all the E_Mail Adresses….I don’t even know if they can!
But they could switch em to runnin on Hotmail…
Comment by Zaayn — February 9, 2008 @ 8:07 pm