Will Microsoft acquire Yahoo! and Facebook to defeat Google?
I, like almost everyone else, was tired of Yahoo! sucking up the limelight, dancing around in the forefront while we all sighed impatiently with “get on with it” attitudes over Microsoft’s acquisition offer. However, Microsoft and Yahoo! are back at the table; this time, it seems that Microsoft is looking to buy only Yahoo! search, then move to acquire Facebook, which would allow the three-musketeer team to take on the web giant Google.
There are about five bazillion blogs and websites buzzing about the possibilities of this latest deal, but I chose Furrier.com as my source for this story. While acquiring Yahoo! might have been a smart move for Microsoft as part of becoming a legitimate force on the internet, this latest suggestion to pair Yahoo! search with Facebook has some real possibility.
Here’s the suggested plan of attack:
-acquire Yahoo! Search for some amount of money in the billions.
-acquire Facebook, the most popular social networking site on the internet.
-sit the teams from Facebook and Yahoo! Search down to a few nice coffee and donut breakfasts to integrate Yahoo! Search into Facebook, and allow Facebook to be searched directly via the Yahoo! search engine.
Here’s why this plan would make sense for Microsoft financially:
1. Microsoft would obviously gain the advertising benefits of being owner of Yahoo! and Facebook.
2. Yahoo! could finally grow up to be a legitimate search engine, and with Facebook could be considered legitimate even with Google dominating the playground.
Robert Scoble, however bad he may be as a writer, suggested that Microsoft’s buyout will force Facebook to remain closed to the public so as to keep Google’s “spiders” out. If Facebook can keep Google’s long fingers out, then Yahoo! could theoretically get rights to index the contents of Facebook on its search engine, effectively limiting Google’s reach as well as delivering the much-desired venue for searching Facebook on a search engine.
Furrier believes the entire deal to cost Microsoft no more than $45 billion altogether in the acquisition of Yahoo! Search and Facebook. Though Yahoo! might be a little more willing to sell just a part to Microsoft, I am not sure that Facebook will be such an easy sell. Facebook is the bell of the ball right now, and Mark Zuckerman knows his little startup turned giant is the most desired thing on the internet block.
Then again, $25 billion is hard to turn down, no matter who you are. This has potential to be very big, indeed.
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May 20th, 2008
Interesting post…