(2008-02-01) Microsoft Bids For Yahoo

Microsoft bid for Yahoo.

Who would his benefit, exactly? I mean other than the incompetent senior managers in both companies... I agree with Dave Winer - this is a bad M And A fit.

Doc Searls notes the Open Source projects "at risk". A commenter notes Zimbra - are they going to keep moving their MsExchange-killer forward?

Will people yank their FlickR accounts? Del.icio.us?

Update: Clay Shirky thinks Yahoo's value premium might come from their Social Software orientation. And then there's Yahoo Groups, the crazy aunt in the attic. Yahoo! has always been embarrassed by Groups. It's so ordinary, so "my mom uses it," so downright unsexy. They've starved it of resources for years, and they'd kill it if they could, but they can't, for one awkward reason: It's incredibly successful. The daily use of Groups rivals MySpace and FaceBook, and if EMail messages counted as page views, Groups would be one of the most trafficked Internet properties all on its own... And herein lies both the opportunity and the risk of a Yahoo! acquisition--it's hard to turn the obvious and real value these social applications generate into obvious and real dollars... If Yahoo and Microsoft together can figure out how to make money with Yahoo's unique social platforms, they will have created some sustainable advantage. If not, well, $44 billion is a lot of money to pay for mere traffic.

Update: Yahoo rejected the offer.

Related: Yahoo laid off a pile of people.

Marc Andreessen doesn't think this matters much to Start Up folks (because neither BigCo has been doing much Buy-Out stuff lately - he's gives a nice list of other buyers, and says he thinks M And A will heat up the next couple years from companies facing Disruptive change), and might be net-positive (because they'll be too busy to do Product Development).

May04: Microsoft gave up (for now).