Early Sunday, I saw this on a BoingBoing article: Google legal counsel David Drummond has released a statement that criticizes the proposed merger as anticompetitive. Here’s a New York Times article about the announcement. Google claims that Microsoft would use Yahoo to push proprietary solutions. Microsoft has a long history of developing and implementing its own extensions to Internet standards.
Elizabeth Montalbano of NetworkWorld had similar concerns in her article. She and the Register point out that Microsoft is really buying Yahoo’s computing platform and user base, partly because Microsoft’s Internet presence ls ineffective.
Of course, both companies have different cultures. One uniting factor may be their mutual envy of Google, as discussed in this BusinessWeek article.
This is not a “done deal” by any means
Yahoo’s board will most likely resist the buyout offer, which may give the Federal government and the EU more time to raise their objections. BusinessWeek has a good summary of the potential challenges to the proposed purchase in this article.
Even if Microsoft does actually purchase Yahoo, victory is not assured. As Joe Nocera of the New York Times pointed out in his article today, Microsoft’s online division is the only one of the company’s five strategic business units (SBUs) that loses money. Adding Yahoo may not stem the flood of red ink.
See my Friday, 1 February 2008 post and comments about the proposed Microsoft purchase of Yahoo for more information and links.
Tags: data-center, Dell, electricity, EU, Europe, Federal, Google, hardware, Microsoft, open-source, power, software, Yahoo
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