Microsoft gives up on Yahoo
Careful! This post is looking a little old and could be inaccurate in many, many ways
It’s been a while since the news broke of Microsoft’s offer to buy Yahoo, but today all the speculation is over as Microsoft has walked away from the merger. It appears Mirosoft’s valuation of £24.1 billion is too cheap for a seemingly failing company like Yahoo.
When the news broke I was positive that a Yahoo/Microsoft merger would only benefit Internet users. I understand most people see Microsoft as the big bad software company, and that may be true. However Microsoft Live, the companies online arm, cannot be tainted in the same way. Instead in the online world this honour goes to Google.
For differing reasons I feel that Google has become too powerful an entity with little or no competition. The Microsoft/Yahoo merger would create a force more capable to challenge this dominance and create a more balanced market place where users have more options. However it appears that Yahoo’s recent ties to Google creates an opposite shift to that which Microsoft hoped.
With Microsoft alone struggling to challenge Google, it is idealistic to think that a new power may emerge on the Internet. So Microsoft’s failed buyout of Yahoo leaves nothing changed, with our online world to be continually guided by the hands at Google.