Microsoft has been looking at a possible acquisition of the Yahoo online portal and search engine, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Citing unnamed sources, the paper claims that a faction within Microsoft is lobbying to have the company purchase a stake in the search provider, but that such plans are “on hold”.
…. I admit I did not see that coming, but if they decided that the only way to win over Google is to MSNize Yahoo, be it that way.
That said the next one that has the guts to brush off the accuse of Monopoly from Microsoft gets bashed.
Right after I shake their hands and compliment them for the courage to go on with such an unsustainable point.
Could be worst, I guess… Microsoft could have bought Google… Ah wait, what am I smoking here?
yeah what are you smoking, Microsoft doesnt have close to enough money to buy them. Google is worth 117 billion, Microsoft is worth 237 right now. I would like to know where microsoft would get around 130 billion to do the deal. I am sure if Microsoft could, they would go back in time and buy up all of google when it went public. Hell wouldnt we all?
edit: I didnt notice you used pastense, my bad.
Edited 2006-05-04 20:37
Damn asian people! If they didn’t pirate Windows and Office Microsoft would have the money to buy Google. Damn!
this woul dmake me very sad to say the least. dont give into the dark side yahoo….fight it..
How about concentrating on your core business, you know like Operating Systems and Office Suites? That would be sweet.
Unless you’ve just awoke from a long decade hibernation…
The Internet is a core business (servers) for MS.
“The Internet is a core business (servers) for MS.”
Ummm– no. You are thinking of corporate INTRAnets. Most people aren’t dumb enough to run MSFT based servers out on the web, with all the uptime and security issues.
Good thing most people aren’t dumb enough to listen to you.
MS suck on servers, only fool can set it up on internet server. The only use is Active Directory, and may be Exchange server in intranet, no intranet here, stop joking
Good thing most people aren’t dumb enough to listen to you.
@TomB7
Ummm– no. You are thinking of corporate INTRAnets. Most people aren’t dumb enough to run MSFT based servers out on the web, with all the uptime and security issues.
lol Another MS-hatin’ OSS fundie.
*hint* Windows Server 2K3 *hint*
*hint* Powers all kind of web sites *hint*
*hint* great security record *hint*
Windows sucks on servers, Core Business
. I know, you re kidding 
@Phoenix49
Did they fix Apache’s many vulnerabilities yet?
have you looked at the vunerabilities in Apache ?
you know, apache runs on Windows too, and the majority of the flaws found so far are vunerabilities that can be exploited on WINDOWS machines…
now, what was your point ?
“Increasingly irrelevant giant tries to buy white elephant, but can’t even get THAT right”.
Yeah, it really sounds like a desperate move from MS… How many years in advance does Google have over Microsoft?
Cripes, Apple decided they needed to become a media company.
Google, Yahoo and MS compete to absorb technologies first and see if they’re useful second.
MS already owns two platforms: Windows and Office, each feeding each other symbiotically.
Goog’s only interested in how much a new technology can be crammed through port 80 despite the security risks and the cruft that is AJAX.
Yahoo finds proven, independently created online communities and craps them up by rewriting their rules. GeoCities, WebRing, Del.icio.us…
Nitwits at Linspire are hellbent on turning a form interactivity script language into an office-app-worthy platform for coding Larry Ellison’s wettest dream, regardless of the internal mess that is most browser’s code. Note that Macromedia gets away with it in Dreamweaver because they wrote their own JS engine.
I for one do not welcome our empire-building overtards.
Hasn’t MS ALWAYS been about “platform empires”?
I’m just curious about if this were to actually happen. I wonder if they would do something similar as to what they did to hotmail when they acquired it… Get rid of FreeBSD and install their own product on the servers (mistake if you ask me…)
From what I understand Yahoo is a huge supporter of FreeBSD and other BSD’s on the server end. They’ve used it since day one since they started the company (Yahoo that is).
I wonder…
Yeah, but how many years did it take for Microsoft to finally switch Hotmail over? I don’t recall, but I do remember it being a couple years or so.
on all weddings and get non of them right!
MS Boys: Focus on Vista and get that junk out on the road!
Yeah,
They way things are going, I don’t think MS should be thinking about acquisitions.
Yahoo has its faults, but to have it ruined by Microsoft would really, well, Suck.
You’re kidding right? You’re talking about the company that destroyed its chat rooms selling them to porn bots, is being sued for illegal practices in its advertising, and has repeatedly turned its back on freedom and helped the Chinese track down those it wishes to persecute.
And you’re saying Microsoft, a monopolist in a free market at worst, is worse?
I’d say the only thing I like Yahoo! for is making Paul Graham a very wealthy man
.
Folks, you can learn from this man. Learn from his objectivity.
what Microsoft are doing in China at the minute is actually far worse than what Yahoo did…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4088702.stm
anyone here heard of free speech ?
MY Shoo?
Yahooms?
Smayhoo?
yams.
Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo out. Good. That will mean less spam on the Internet.
And that’s a good thing(tm).
Edited 2006-05-05 00:07
>this would make me very sad to say the least. dont give
>into the dark side yahoo….fight it..
Yahoo *is* on the dark side, it was Yahoo that collaborated with the Chinese to imprison a dissident writer. I consider that to be the worst offence, its similar to the companies that collaborated with the Nazis during WWII.
I use Yahoo mail. It works extremely well. I would hate to lose it. I use Flickr. Flickr shows a level of coding expertise decades beyond anything those losers in Redmond could manage. Yahoo games and media offerings tend to be Windows only and thus suck, at the current time, but that may change. As for evilness– I disapprove of what they did, but they are far from alone in that. Frankly, I think Nixon should have never opened the Chinese Pandora’s box in 1972, but he did, and the consequences are a real tar baby now. We are losing manufacturing to China. In 20 years, we may be losing tech jobs, too. China holds our debt. China prostitutes itself to regimes like Angola to cut oil deals because they have no scruples (they are even worse than us in that regard, but MORE ruthlessly efficient. Our govt is the gang that couldn’t shoot straight).
I use Yahoo mail. It works extremely well. I would hate to lose it. I use Flickr. Flickr shows a level of coding expertise decades beyond anything those losers in Redmond could manage. Yahoo games and media offerings tend to be Windows only and thus suck, at the current time, but that may change. As for evilness– I disapprove of what they did, but they are far from alone in that. Frankly, I think Nixon should have never opened the Chinese Pandora’s box in 1972, but he did, and the consequences are a real tar baby now. We are losing manufacturing to China. In 20 years, we may be losing tech jobs, too. China holds our debt. China prostitutes itself to regimes like Angola to cut oil deals because they have no scruples (they are even worse than us in that regard, but MORE ruthlessly efficient. Our govt is the gang that couldn’t shoot straight).
It wasn’t Nixon’s doing, but Kissinger, and the objectives were noble; to team up with China, as they did with Yugoslavia, and provide a wall against Soviet expansion into south east asia, just as they used the cronie regimes to not only get cheap oil in the middle east, but to stop soviet influenc from spreading, in the way of ideology – by creating a warped fusion of islamic backed facism which was ruthlessly anti-socialism and anti-communist.
America right now has the ability to take a stand, it is the largest single nation with a GDP of $11trillion; but what it would require also is a major undertaking in terms of mending the many bridges which the US has burnt with its south american neighbours, and to start appologising for its past, whilst creating a new road map for the future.
As for the buy out of Yahoo; quite frankly, I don’t see it happening; they might wish to ween Yahoo off the google search technology which yahoo uses, in favour of this technology Microsoft is working on, but in terms of buying out a large established company, that isn’t in Microsofts lexicon; they either purchase something that is very young and has potential, or basically extremely crappily run, see that there is potential, and pull the company into the larger Microsoft, sprinkle some Microsoft dust over it, and get it working properly.
MSN’s biggest problem, funny enough isn’t overseas; right now, MSN is the biggest information portal in New Zealand, Australia, and a large number of Asian countries; where they’re failing is in their home turf; and quite frankly, I don’t think they should care if they’re failing in the US; thats 300million people, compared to the BILLIONs that exist beyond the shores of the US; personally, Microsoft should thrown in the towl in the US, and just focus on their international sites – where they’re having more success.
I don’t know why people even worry about China. Yes we have debt to China, but without selling to us China would have not markets! They do 75% of their business with us. If China gets too big for it’s self we cut them off and move the jobs to Indonesia etc. Yes we have debt to them (We have debt to the UN also) It’s really not like China can come here and make us pay it back, we’ll get to it when we get to it and we have the military to back that up.
On top of that China has a big, big problem! No real middle class.
Ether people are extra poor, a little poor or they are making tons of money. Out of 1.3 Billion people, only a small fraction (Less then 100 million people) are even close to the middle class. That leaves around 1 billion poor people in China still. That can’t last forever.
Also what China has done is sell the people a bill of goods, they are giving people false hope to this they can get out of being poor and move to the middle or upper class. And in return the unwritten rule is that the people don’t oppose the one party system.
Anyway, what does China have to do with Microsoft wanting to get its hands in EVERY thing in the tech world that becomes hot. Yes, they cornered the market first on the OS side, next they took over the browser world. But since then what else have they done, they have tried to take over hand helds like palm and blackberry (No dice) they they tried to take over video games with the Xbox (still being outsold by the PS2) then they bought web tv (And people ran) they have been pushing MSN since Windows 95 came out (The only people that use it are people who know nothing else and use it cause there are links in Windows) Now they want to buy Yahoo to take on Google? Why? Because they are jealous that Google is the hot new thing on the market and they didn’t think of it first.
I would say go for it, but MS’s track record is not good, they only products that make money are Windows, Office and Exchange. The rest of the stuff loses money or breaks even. They need to focus on their core products and make them better!
” Yes we have debt to China, but without selling to us China would have not markets! They do 75% of their business with us”
Have you heard the term “trade imbalance”? To be sure, as China becomes more affluent, the theory goes, they should buy more stuff from us. Yea, maybe.
“Also what China has done is sell the people a bill of goods, they are giving people false hope to this they can get out of being poor and move to the middle or upper class”
We do the same thing. Have you paid Powerball this week? To be sure, we still have a little middle class left, but it feels to me like it is shrinking– though I can’t back that up with numbers.
“Anyway, what does China have to do with Microsoft wanting to get its hands in EVERY thing in the tech world that becomes hot”
We strayed off into the “Evilness quotient” of Yahoo, for sharing info with China.
“I would say go for it, but MS’s track record is not good, they only products that make money are Windows, Office and Exchange. The rest of the stuff loses money or breaks even. They need to focus on their core products and make them better!”
I agree about their non-core products. I disagree with your conclusion. I feel that since MSFT Windows 1) is obsolete (they never even bothered to make the transition to UNIX; the rest of us– Mac and LINUX users are eons ahead of MSFT, techwise) 2) has awful security, with little hope for improvement 3) Has a terrible UI that they should just shoot it in the head, like a horse with a broken leg. Of course, they won’t
Hey bro, I am with you on how you feel about Windows (As you can see my name is Windows Sucks) I was just saying they make money off it, not that it’s worth the money. LOL!
We do the same thing. Have you paid Powerball this week? To be sure, we still have a little middle class left, but it feels to me like it is shrinking– though I can’t back that up with numbers.
“You are right, with Gas prices going up and housing going up the Middle class is getting smaller, but the ratio of poor to middle class here is WAY different then the ratio in China. Also here anyone has the chance to become part of the middle class. Meaning that if you are black, white, Spanish, gay, a woman, a dwarf, whoever! If you work it right you can become a part of the middle class. In China that is not true! If you are a woman in China you almost can’t become part of the middle class unless you marry a man who is. That is why people there still kill off girl children cause they know that with the limit of 2 kids to a family, you better make boys who can bring in the money.
Anyway, MS just sucks.
“Also here anyone has the chance to become part of the middle class. Meaning that if you are black, white, Spanish, gay, a woman, a dwarf, whoever! If you work it right you can become a part of the middle class”
I made it. My dad was lower middle class; I’m upper. But I think with our Govt constantly underfunding education, basic research, and social safety-net programs, I see “Brasilification” in our future– rich and poor; little middle. As for sexism in China, that seriously sucks.
I am also concerned, though, that declining oil reserves (declining since the 1970’s) plus China’s demand added to ours, will lead to 1) more CO2– a LOT more 2) more 3rd world instability 3) Inevitable bickering between us and them– how bad, I don’t know.
You are right about all that.
The funny thing is that most of those issues are easy to fix if people would stop worrying about flag burning, gay marriage and Zacarias Moussaoui we would be able to get things like education and social programs back on track.
But you got people in power here who don’t care and people who dont pay attention.
For instance grade school could be fixed by going to a voucher system that would allow anyone to go to any school public or private they want! For the schools public and private to compete. Those schools who don’t perform and cant attract students will go out of “business” so to speak.
Trust me a lot more schools would work a lot harder to make sure their students do well. As it stands now if you are poor you go to poor schools, if you are in the middle you go to ok schools and if you have money you go to the best! If you are poor and you at least got the same voucher as the middle and rich kid, you would not go to the very best schools (Because the rich kid could add on to the voucher and go to the VERY best) but you would even out the playing field for poor and middle kids and even some of the rich kids who’s parents are cheap.
As far as energy goes we could have BEEN off the gas crunch like Brazil has. They are driving flex fuel cars in most of the country and only 15% of their fuel is from overseas oil. While in the US only 15% of our fuel is not from overseas oil. But remember Bush and Chaney both worked for big oil (Which is why they won’t show what was talked about in their energy policy meetings) they have no reason to look at other energy sources.
It’s a mess, the US could pull it’s self out of this if the people (Who only react when something bad happens to them) realize that they are no more free then most people in this world and need to work hard to get the freedoms we had back. If that doesn’t happen then like you said our country will crumble.
“For instance grade school could be fixed by going to a voucher system that would allow anyone to go to any school public or private they want! ”
I disagree. I think PUBLIC schools should be allowed to compete– you could go to whichever you want. I don’t like the idea of public monies exiting the public school system and getting funneled to private schools. I think there is too much room for abuse here.
“As far as energy goes we could have BEEN off the gas crunch like Brazil has. They are driving flex fuel cars in most of the country and only 15% of their fuel is from overseas oil”
Agreed. Brasil HAS been smart about petroleum substitutes (and LINUX / OSS, as well. They do benfit from a less corrupt Govt ans way more sugar cane. We have corn, which simply won’t cut it. But the pres has a point about switch grass– that might produce more energy than it takes to grow it. Interesting book “The Omnivores’ Dilemma” (hear a summary on NPR Science Friday’s Podcast archive. They had a FASCINATING interview with the author about the inefficiencies of our heavily corn-based economy).
“I disagree. I think PUBLIC schools should be allowed to compete– you could go to whichever you want. I don’t like the idea of public monies exiting the public school system and getting funneled to private schools. I think there is too much room for abuse here.”
Public money goes to colleges all the time and that seems to work pretty good. As long at the private schools meet the same standards as public schools then I don’t see the harm, this is been tried in Washington DC and would work well but the charter schools have not been held to the same standards in some cases. So some of them have fell to the way side. But those that have met the public school standards seem to do much better.
I think since we all pay taxes that we all should have a choice to do what we please with our tax money that is supposed to go to education. If I choose to take it to a private school so be it, can’t be much worse then the public schools are now! LOL!
Plus the money would not be funneled, each kid would get say $5000 a school year (Or what ever based on where you live and the cost of living etc) and then you would take that check and carry it to the school of your choice. The government would not pay the schools upfront, the parents would look at which schools are the best in your area and pick one. If the school does not meet your needs then next year you take your check to a new school etc.
” then you would take that check and carry it to the school of your choice.”
Okay– maybe I take it to some Fundie school in Georgia where they don’t teach modern biology and think Gays and Blacks are agents of Satan…..
A school like that would not meet public school standards, and prob would not be in business long cause they would not have very many customers.
The funny thing though is the Boy Scouts of America hates Gays and and wont let in non Christians but yet gets government money. Go figure.
Like in DC there are private charter schools but they have to be inspected by the government to make sure that they meet the standards public schools are held to. Granted that is a LOW standard but it would not allow for that Fundie school in Georgia.
On the Georgia note they still have public schools that that have seperate Black, White and Spanish proms. LOL! I don’t put much past Georgia.
Edited 2006-05-05 15:57
Charter schools have scored lower in tests, so I am sceptical aboyut them.
I guess I don’t disagree with your IDEA; I just think the devil is in the details. I think private=(less scrutiny)=(even more chance of corruption).
Nice sub-thread, though. I have been enjoying it.
Yes, it’s pretty good, we may have to chat more off OS news (I am sure people are looking at this and thinking we are crazy at this point)
And yes you are right about the Charter school issue, schools that are not getting scrutiny don’t do well, but here is a good example:
“Ben Chavis is a former public school principal who now runs an alternative charter school in Oakland, Calif., that spends thousands of dollars less per student than the surrounding public schools. He laughs at the public schools’ complaints about money.
“That is the biggest lie in America. They waste money,” he said.
To save money, Chavis asks the students to do things like keep the grounds picked up and set up for their own lunch. For gym class, his students often just run laps around the block. All of this means there’s more money left over for teaching.
Even though he spends less money per student than the public schools do, Chavis pays his teachers more than what public school teachers earn. His school also thrives because the principal gets involved. Chavis shows up at every classroom and uses gimmicks like small cash payments for perfect attendance.
Since he took over four years ago, his school has gone from being among the worst in Oakland to being the best. His middle school has the highest test scores in the city.
“It’s not about the money,” he said.
He’s confident that even kids who come from broken families and poor families will do well in his school. “Give me the poor kids, and I will outperform the wealthy kids who live in the hills. And we do it,” he said.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/12/16/MNGA…
Anyway, hit me sometime at [email protected]
Quote from the Florida government:
“The longer kids stay in American schools, the worse they do in international competition. They do worse than kids from poorer countries that spend much less money on education, ranking behind not only countries like Belgium but also Poland, the Czech Republic and South Korea.
This should come as no surprise if you remember that public education in the United States is a government monopoly. Don’t like your public school? Tough. The school is terrible? Tough. Your taxes fund that school regardless of whether it’s good or bad. That’s why government monopolies routinely fail their customers, just like the DMV/MVA does.”
Edited 2006-05-05 17:35
Yahoo uses Google to outsorce some if not most of their search engine activities, Yahoo is an internet portal and they gave up on being a competitive search engine long ago. Microsoft has their own internet portal (MSN) and search engine, they also have their own internet based free mail (hotmail) so why would the WSJ publish this is beyond me. Anyhow, it is yet another proof that most journalist gave up on doing any research, before publishing drivel like this, long ago…
That’s not true. Yahoo uses their own search engine now. They also have more services than MSN and Google combined.
Ummm, Yahoo stopped using Google for their search engine a long time ago.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/32890.html
“…helped the Chinese track down those it wishes to persecute. ”
“And you’re saying Microsoft, a monopolist in a free market at worst, is worse?”
You are forgetting that MSM did just the same.
”
You are forgetting that MSM did just the same.”
I never heard anything about that. I know MSN deleted a Chinese journalist’s blog at the request of Beijing, even thought it was hosted on US servers, but I never heard of them actually helping send someone to jail.
“with all the uptime and security issues.”
Uptime is overrated.
My Yahoo use is what keeps me on windows.The linux chat client suck since Yahoo doesn’t support voice and webcams.So I guess if Microsoft takes over that software will be a goner.
As mentioned before, will their FreeBsd servers take a dive too in favour of Windows Server ? If you know about chatroom culture those Yahoo servers take a serious beating everyday.
Edited 2006-05-05 03:55
Other than for free email accounts, I don’t know of anyone who uses Yahoo for anything, Google beat them pretty bad in the search engine biz.
Yahoo’s fall from fame began when they added all the extra junk on their search page. Who wants to sit there and load a bunch of banner ads and news bits when you’re really just trying to enter a search query. Google’s superiority doesn’t so much lie in it’s features or search capabilities – it’s their mainpage that loads in a fraction of a second. And feature-wise, Google makes things available without shoving everything in your face.
This would be another terrible idea cooked-up by marketing-minded managers instead of real-world techies.
A faction within Microsoft? Hey, that would make for a great game!
I can already see it before me: “Microsoft: factions”
*hint* zombie armies *hint*
*hint* botnets *hint*
Rumors of Company X purchasing Company y?
c’mon, this stuff is all over slashdot, digg, and theregister.
Please don’t let osnews become another generic news aggregator of the above. Stick to what you do best.
Guys, I love OSNews, but you really have to do something about your database. I get an error page that the database has crashed every few days … what the hell are you doing with it … ?
Tom
You’re surprised? they’re probably using some half baked POS database; dear god osnews, just grab Ingres and be done with it!
“I get an error page that the database has crashed every few days”
Every few days? You’re lucke mate, I get it a boatload of times every day.
Amen.
(For the atheists: I agree 8D)
Microsoft is also in a situation where by everything relies on one product, Microsoft Office.
Why do people run Windows? because they need their Office fix, why do they run it on the server? because people think that they need exchange (when any damn thing out there could do, plus, most just use exchange as a glorified email relayer),
Thats why Microsoft is working so hard to make sure this crack addiction continues for the for seeable future; sell this false story that you *need* Microsoft Office to run a business, and that you *need* the office system to be productive; anyone with half a brain and is cynical about anything on offer by ‘the very big corporation of America’ will see right through the PR – none of this so-called ‘integrated collabortion’ is needed, its more crap being pandered to MBA wizzkids that sit in middle management, without a clue to their name, but simply got into that position because of a TLA after their name.
Browser: Lynx/2.8.5rel.4 libwww-FM/2.14
…saying YMSN?
why???
🙁