Microsoft to buy Yahoo?
After almost a year of rumoured discussions, Microsoft has formally tabled an offer for Yahoo. [See the official statement from Microsoft here.] The bid, valued at $44.6 would see the two companies join forces as soon as Q3 2008. This tie up would be an impressive one, and a very logical one.
(We borrowed this great logo form Mashable. Click here to read their story on it.)
In their own ways, they have both struggled to compete with Google in the search ads market with Yahoo struggling to make Panama work [which would achieve greater income yield for its paid search listings] and Microsoft having failed to deliver any real volume through its AdCenter search product.
The tie up would also challenge [and beat] Google in the display ads stakes, not least because of the two large portals and their immense size which would push the combined size to over 40m UK unique users compared to Google’s which would remain under 26m. The deals Microsoft also has with Facebook will ensure it has a healthy margin for display inventory.
And ‘2.0′ or new tools won’t be hindered either. Yahoo’s string of acquisitions from Flickr to Delicious never really being ‘in the fold’ maybe some development skills at Microsoft can help all this gel together.
Its still early days in this deal, but a tie up would be smart and would finally give a viable alternative to Google’s dominance.
We will have more analysis and insight as the deal progresses, in the meantime you can get the wider picture of the deal from these great sites:
Techcrunch - ‘What Would a Combined Microsoft-Yahoo Look Like?’
Mashable - Microsoft Wants to Buy Yahoo
Sphere: Related Content
February 1st, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Nice news. If it happen, google will face a big trouble.