Who Is The Bigger Idiot, Yahoo! or Microsoft?
One of the most bizarre pieces of business news lately has been around Microsoft’s hostile takeover bid of Yahoo.
Since Yahoo rejected the bid, the news is reporting that:
Microsoft Corp.’s abandoned takeover bid for Yahoo Inc. appears to have culminated with a disheartening thud for those two companies but amounted to yet another coup for online search leader Google Inc.
I mean at first, I thought this story would just turn out to be an embarrassment for Microsoft, who offered a ridiculous $46B for a second rate, circling the drain, “we haven’t created a successful product in years”, search engine.
That in and of itself would have been ridiculous enough. For some reason Microsoft still seems to think that they can compete by knocking off good ideas (Zune? Vista? etc) instead of actually innovating (oh yeah and learning how to do good user interface design).
I’ve written about how Microsoft has lost touch with reality since as early as 2004, but lately it seems to be getting worse. Here is a video of Balmer laughing off the iPhone. Whoops! Turned out to be the fastest selling consumer electronics device OF ALL TIME.
Come on, Google needs some real competition or they’re going to become lazy and arrogant at the top!
Anyway, I thought that would have been the end of it….but no, Yahoo! decides to top Microsoft’s stupidity by REJECTING the bid.
I mean sure, the idea of working for Microsoft probably wasn’t ideal for them. But seriously, to be doing that poorly and then have a huge buyout offer come along like that, you should be counting your blessings and praying the check clears before Microsoft comes to their senses.
I’ll make a public prediction right here that Yahoo! will look back on this in the years to come as a HUGE missed opportunity. Their stock will continue to decline and they’ll never get another buyout even close to that.
So what do you think, who is the bigger idiot? Yahoo! or Microsoft? Or do I have it all wrong? Let me know in the comments…
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Creer un site said,
Wrote on June 18, 2008 @ 2:55 am
Yahoo could still be eaten by Google :-), it’s the way they choose at the moment !
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Jason Gilman said,
Wrote on June 21, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
I don’t think Yahoo and Microsoft were a good fit for each other from a technological and company culture standpoint. Combining two companies that each have significant issues is more likely to create one company with twice as many issues.
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Brian Armstrong reply on June 23, 2008 10:02 pm:
True, I remember reading somewhere that some astonishingly high percentage of M&A’s fail. Like 80% or something.
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