The latest Microhoo rumor -- and it comes from BoomTown's Kara
Swisher, who has a better batting average than the hearsay peddlers
below the Mendoza line -- claims that both companies are still talking about a search and advertising partnership.
Now, before you begin shaking your head, this isn't the ridiculous
chatter that finds Yahoo! accepting gobs of money to hand over its
precious real estate to Mr. Softy's grubby hands.
No, the more realistic turn finds Yahoo! selling the juicy search
and display advertising across both companies. Microsoft would be the
tech brains behind the engines, and possibly invest in Yahoo!
Finally! We have a Microhoo deal that makes sense. There was little
reason for Yahoo! to just hand over its search to Microsoft. It may as
well sell itself whole. However, the new kind of deal would let the
larger online market of the two -- Yahoo! -- get even bigger, with
Microsoft having some serious skin in the game.
Microsoft on Yahoo!'s shoulders isn't enough to take on Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), but it's a more attractive competitor than either one can be on their own or through smaller acquisitions like Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) AOL or IAC's (Nasdaq: IACI) Ask.com.
Microsoft continues to lose money online, and it needs to scale
quickly. Yahoo! is squarely profitable, but investors are hungry for
results since the company rebuffed Microsoft's buyout bid last year.
Every day that passes without a win-win deal simply delays the
inevitable and makes the competition that much stronger.
Or, in the words of When Harry Met Sally's Harry Burns:
"I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the
rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to
start as soon as possible."
Copyright © 2009 Universal Press Syndicate.
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