A Week Of Confessions From Microsoft, Google and Maybe Yahoo
The online world is still reeling in the wake of Microsoft's mammoth bid for Yahoo, and the news is spawning reactions that are breaking the poker faces of many.
The bid in essence is a confession by Microsoft that they have been going wrong in their online strategy. They are lagging behind everyone in pretty much every stat relating to online search and property. By making this bid Microsoft are admitting to the world that they need to act fast to get back into the race. Almost all of Yahoo’s online properties would have been available to Microsoft if they had acted quicker and could have been acquired for millions not billions.
Aside of Microsoft’s rush, the knock on effect and potential outcome has made the Google exec show a little fear. In their blog this week the unsolicited bid from Microsoft has been labelled “hostile” and a threat to all things good on the internet. The blog goes on to highlight Microsoft’s poor reputation from past cases relating to fair trading and monopolies. It has been overlooked that the whole idea of the bid would be to stop Google taking a monopoly of online search and advertising. This blog is an admission that the joining of Microsoft and Yahoo could be the last and only threat to Google’s domination.
This hasn’t been the only crack to show. It has been suggested that AOL, of which Google owns 5%, have been nudged in the direction of making a rival bid for Yahoo. And to top this off, it has been reported that Eric Schmidt, personally called Yahoo's chief, Jerry Yang, to offer assistance in fending off the advances of Microsoft. This could be loans of recourses or even more hands on assistance.
The decision is yet to be made and will be long time coming, but if Yahoo do accept the bid, is this not just the admission that Yahoo, even with Jerry at the helm could not take on Google in the business they started?
