Within the company we’ve been hearing rumours and whispers since last year, and especially a lot of employees who passionately believed we needed Yahoo. But now it’s official. Microsoft has made a proposal to acquire Yahoo Inc. now.
A quick review of what this may mean for both the companies and how this may really be the biggest (in terms of consequences; not money) merger yet.
1. Yahoo has great content and retention capacity. Yahoo knows how to get users, and make them keep visiting Yahoo regularly. Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Mail, and the most popular, Yahoo Messenger. You use it and you _want_ to use it daily.
2. Microsoft has platform. If you’ve seen Yahoo Mail Beta, you’ll find their AJAX kinda sucks and is bloated. Microsoft knows good AJAX and good programming. The combination of the two would be to die for!
3. Microsoft doesn’t have content and content-providers. Yahoo Answers is something where you can really see the kind of user-attraction Yahoo has. There are so many people who actually take time to seriously answer questions. Similarly, on my “My Yahoo” page, I can see recommendations for movies, movies have reviews, reviews have trailers, and it’s all inter-connected. Microsoft doesn’t have all that content in our Live properties yet.
4. Microsoft knows management – trust me – I work there. We know business. We know how to leverage our value-adds, and how to keep employees happy and productive, how to manage various assets and integrate them together. People and HR practices are something I totally admire Microsoft for – I just don’t know any other company that can match the business practices of the company.
All in all, I’m too excited to blog right now. Got so many things that come to mind and so many things I can’t speak of. In any case, you will find out eventually through our public relations team, so wait and watch…. and go buy some stock while you’re at it.
