Why Microsoft Buying Yahoo COULD Rock

February 1, 2008 · Comments

Ray Ozzie Should I just stop at this picture of Ray Ozzie? This is why MSFT buying the big purple Y! makes sense. You can argue that there are some cool parts of Microsoft. I’ll grant that there are whole areas of the company that I like and think are doing better than people give them credit for. You might even be a fan of MSFT.

But the thing is this: Ray is super cool. His stuff with Groove Networks (which got watered into being Office Groove- and no, I don’t know what I’m talking about because I haven’t used the MSFT version) is killer collaboration stuff. Ray’s mind is set up for this kind of thinking. He’s one of us. He’s participatory.

And to that end, I think that with Microsoft picking up Yahoo, there might be some interesting collaboration points.

Who’s going to argue about what Yahoo has going for it? I think you could say Groups (which I think are some of the best 1.0 technology out there), and you could say that Finance is pretty good. What else? (No! You may NOT count upcoming, del.icio.us, Flickr, and more).

So yeah.

Photo credit, Jeff Sandquist

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  • Not a mention of Yahoo pipes?
    I thought they were/are pretty cool
  • I also think it can be a great thing for all of us if this happens. Yahoo needs a major change as does M$. Yahoo does many things better than Microsoft such as their mail, search, and even their bookmark/favorites! I tried to like live favorites but Microsoft has an insanely low limit to the number you can keep online! Yahoo bookmarks has handled thousands of bookmarks without a hitch and it allows you to share them too. Unlike google bookmarks, but I digress.

    Yahoo pipes mixed with Microsoft's excellent popfly will be ultra cool! Mash the mashups!

    Paihooligan
  • I'll keep an open mind, but I have never liked m$ and I really don't like Y! either...so we shall see. I just wish that Flickr wasn't part of the deal.
  • Good point.

    But I almost have to wonder if they're doing it just a tad too late.
  • I definitely respect Ray Ozzie, but tend to agree more with umair:

    Neither company has the DNA to take on Google (let alone the massive number of startups waiting in the wings). Sure, they might collectively have the resources. But DNA will always constrain YahooSoft from utilizing those resources in ways that create value.
  • LINUX
    RAWX

    m$
    sux
  • ok. i will try to keep an open mind but the MS track record is not good for opening things up. It's also not great for messing up acquisitions.
  • compassioninpolitics
    Yahoo Answers and My Blog Log are huge! Opening up the API for My Blog Log was a great move on Yahoo's part. Yahoo answers has great traffic, I just wish I had the same trust that I do of Linked In Answers (even close).

    I seem to remember Scoble touring Yahoo via a qik video that talked about great stuff in the pipeline at Yahoo.
  • I still can't see how Microsoft acquiring Yahoo would be good for anyone... except maybe Microsoft.

    But, in the case that the acquisition actually happens... hopefully, I could be wrong.
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