As I'm following the ongoing story Microsoft and Yahoo, the whole thing is starting to feel like one big soap opera.
In one corner is Microsoft, a lumbering giant that seems to be crushing under it's own weight, who is still trying to prove it's still a major player in the Internet market (BTW, it's not, it missed that boat along time ago). Buying Yahoo is seen as a way of consolidating their market shares against "the new Big Blue", Google.
On the other side is Yahoo, who should have been Google before Google was even "Google", and keeps trying to tell it's shareholders and the world at large that they're just five years away from turning it all around... unfortunately, I think they've been in the middle of this five year plan for eight years now?
Now entering into this little drama is Fox News Corp, who in the last few years purchased The Wall Street Journal as well as MySpace. Talk about diversity! Seems Microsoft wants to team up with them so they can both go after Yahoo together. I just wouldn't want to be in the board meetings where these three diverse and philosophically different companies all try to get on the same page.
Last but not least, Yahoo recently announced plans to try to acquire AOL from Time Warner. They would get AOL, and presumable Platform A, the AOL advertising system that consolidates a number of recent acquisitions, as well as cash for 20% in the company.
Sadly this feels like just a play on Yahoo's part to keep Microsoft at bay. With the acquisition, are they hoping to be too large for Microsoft to afford, not to mention the cash that they can use to further fight off Microsoft. I would actually have liked to see Yahoo acquire AOL awhile ago when it wasn't against the wall. I think the merging of the two companies, with Yahoo's extensive email user base, along with AOL's IM client base could all be merged into one happily targeted audience, not to mention consolidating a lot of there content offerings between the two.
Maybe that'll be the sequel, but in the meantime, it doesn't seem like this show is running out of plotlines anytime soon.
