Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)-Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) deal.

[Gaziz]

Dow Jones


The comment below responds to the question we posed on Dow Jones NewsPlus:
Should Yahoo accept Microsoft's $45 billion offer? Please share your own views.
Email us at TalkBackAmericas@dowjones.com.



Marcelo Carvalho, an IT manager in San Francisco, writes:



I do not know if anybody, including Marat Glazer, the Los Angeles software
developer who wrote the "Microsoft's Yahoo Bid Genius" Talk Back letter, has
understood the layer beneath a Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)-Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) deal.


The potential deal is not the same as two petroleum companies merging by just
putting together their respective 6% and 22% market shares, changing the plastic
banners at the gas stations, and at most, deciding from whom to continue buying
drill bits.


It is an entirely different beast.


Microsoft runs on the Windows platform and it has proved inadequate to run big
Internet companies. There is not one big Internet company - and I mean "BIG"
like Google Inc. (GOOG), Yahoo, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), eBay Inc. (EBAY) and
such - that runs on Windows besides Microsoft. Its software platform has been a
disaster supporting its search engine, email and other free services.


On that front, Microsoft is being beaten by Google and Yahoo, both running on
open source software, which has shown to be much more efficient than Windows
servers. Of the top 500 supercomputers about 80% now run on Linux, including the
top two, which run on the SuSE Linux Enterprise Server.


Now here comes the big issue!


Will Microsoft move Yahoo to Windows?


If so, Microsoft will go broke because this is just what hasn't worked well.


If the company does not, it will be signing the Windows platform obituary
because when people realize that Microsoft itself can run on Linux and does not
need Windows, they will follow through.


To my knowledge the simple fact of Microsoft bidding to buy Yahoo means that
Microsoft has thrown in the towel on its operating system, and that the Windows
platform is a thing of the past.

[mpako6ec]

Looks like M$ sponsored another OpenSource project !
If BG really thinks he can stop Linux this way...

[sobomax]

To my knowledge the simple fact of Microsoft bidding to buy Yahoo means that
Microsoft has thrown in the towel on its operating system, and that the Windows
platform is a thing of the past.

Author is an idiot. MS for the most part is buying Yahoo's name and auditory. They need somebody like Y! to compete with Google.

-Maxim