Yahoo! and Microsoft, Wedded Bliss?
July 27, 2010
Yahoo! and Microsoft have exchanged rings, gone to the chapel and returned from their honeymoon (http://www.internetnews.com/search/article.php/3894486). Now the world waits to see what kind of baby they’ll make. The two search also-rans are in the process of combining Microsoft’s Bing (www.bing.com) search technology with Yahoo!’s established presence in an attempt to compete with Google. “As we continue to make progress implementing various aspects of the Yahoo and Microsoft Search Alliance,” a spokesman said. “Our two companies continue to work together towards the goal of providing a quality transition experience for advertisers.”
While we’re all curious if this merger will produce a Rosemary’s Baby, securing its advertising first strikes us as a wise approach. It’ll take big bucks to stop Google’s dominance and this might be the key.
In fact, MarketWatch’s “What’s wrong with Yahoo?” makes the point that Yahoo has a knack for turning a blue ribbon into an also-participated certificate. The article said:
Everything it does is second rate, or when they buy a company they put it on a track to become second rate. When they develop or buy something that is not only first rate or fundamentally a world-beater, they have no clue as to how to market it.
MarketWatch focuses on the firm’s management, which is skilled in cursing may lack the touch required to make the marriage work. The addled goose has yet to recover from the verbal baloney tossed at him after the publication of his analysis of Google’s attempt to corner the semantic Web. Not only did Google fizzle, so did Yahoo. What’s that tell you about the difficulties of the semantic stuff and the overweening confidence programmers have in their own team’s abilities? The goose learned a lot.
Stephen E Arnold, July 27, 2010
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