Cranfield Posted February 1, 2008 Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 Microsoft announced today that they are offering £22.4 billion in cash and shares to buy Yahoo. Its believed that there strategy is to try to mount a successful opposition to Google ruling the Internet. That seems a lot of money for Yahoo, I don't know anyone that uses it. Which search engine do you use ? I use Google. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chard Posted February 1, 2008 Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 I use Google, but my wife uses Yahoo Most people I know use Google Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dustyfox Posted February 1, 2008 Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 i use Google, dont think no one can compete wit them now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bagsy Posted February 1, 2008 Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 Must admit I thought this deal was a little strange, Google just about do everything most need from a search engine and more. Microsoft must have a good business plan in mind to justify spending that amount though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lurcherboy Posted February 1, 2008 Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 There must be money in it or MS wouldn't bother would they? LB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnGalway Posted February 1, 2008 Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 I use Google, and if that deal goes through I'll continue to use Google until I'm the last person on it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BSA Shaun Posted February 1, 2008 Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 Rough figures: Google users - 500M Yahoo - 400M Microsoft - 350M They have bought it to combine the microsoft and Yahoo figures into 1 - giving them 750M users. The new site would be called Yahoosoft. That's why they are buying it, to try to become another monopoly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bagsy Posted February 1, 2008 Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 How do these sites make money, I don't look into them in depth but I never see much advertising on them. Do websites pay to be included? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BSA Shaun Posted February 1, 2008 Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 Advertising revenue mate. "Google is a major player in the online advertising industry. Every time you search Google, you'll see ads displayed along with your results. Those ads are never "mixed in" with the results - there is no "pay to play" on Google... which is one of the reasons Google became the most popular search engine in the first place. But the sponsored text-link ads above and to the right of the results generate a great deal of money for Google. These ads are known as "Google Adwords." Those who wish to advertise via Google can learn more on Google's Adwords page. In addition, you may have noticed columns or boxes containing similar text-link ads on other websites - such as this one - which say "Ads by Google" at the top. Google already had a powerful system for selling and displaying ads in association with their own search engine. From there, it wasn't much of a jump to start displaying ads on other websites. Webmasters of popular sites with interesting content can sign up on Google's Adsense page and begin displaying Google ads to their users. Google pays the webmaster a portion of the advertising revenue and keeps the rest. This service is called "Google Adsense." " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chard Posted February 1, 2008 Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 Rough figures: Google users - 500M Yahoo - 400M Microsoft - 350M They have bought it to combine the microsoft and Yahoo figures into 1 - giving them 750M users. The new site would be called Yahoosoft. That's why they are buying it, to try to become another monopoly. Those are American figures. In the UK ten times more people use Google than Yahoo apparently Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BSA Shaun Posted February 1, 2008 Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 I can believe that mate, its set as my homepage and know many others who also have it as theirs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mungler Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 Microsoft have more money than they know what to do with. Back in the day they spent a small fortune on buying hotmail a free email service set up by a couple of drop outs. They could probably afford Google but I would suspect every monopolies and mergers commission would stop them. It's all about control - drip drip drip and at some point they will have the controling share in global communications and then on to what, who knows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axe Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 It was once said that if Bill Gates drops a $100 bill it would actually cost him more to stop and pick it up, as in the time it takes him to do so he would have earnt $500!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pin Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 To me it's users. All they want is to control what yahoo users see, and is promoted to them. Each and every "user" is allocated a dollar value, like when ISP's buy each other - the figure is usually expressed as a figure per subscriber. Remember Yahoo, very much like google, own a bunch of businesses besides the search engine they started with Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
salisburykeeper Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 (edited) google and yahoo although are the same type of business are as different as chalk and cheese, the search algorthyms on yahoo differ greatly to google and the advertising revenues on each are off the scale. as on both of the search engines to promote your business by means of "organic" search results which means you will get a top ranking from inclusion of several factors for the top 10 spot by putting these measures into place and is free, you can also pay to get better rankings with both google and yahoo with different packages that are in place. yahoo made a profit of £331 million in 2007 which was a drop of over 12% from the previous year but have integrated several new features into their service including social networking and are working closely with ebay to stop phishing on the internet. So from any companies point of view yahoo is a sound investment with long term prospects and has strong brand recognition which potential purchasers will be looking to expliot, and as for the monopolies commisions stepping in its very unlikley to happen as recent internet trends have been given pretty much free passage , most likely due to the sheer scale of the deals in place and this deal will probably also stand unchallenged. Edited February 2, 2008 by salisburykeeper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pin Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 Fair comment, but it's about brand and penetration of that brand - this has very little if anything to do with search engines. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashcmt Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 i wonder what google are thinking about it all. because if your competitor moves to buy out the next biggest market player, and significantly increase their market share to well in excess of your own, surely they'd be a bit gutted that they hadnt thought to buy google first? maybe i suppose they have already looked at buying it and thought it wasnt worth it, or are planning to diversify some how?? what do you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveieP Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 Microsoft has an unfortunate anti-competative strategy. If there's a good rival product, buy them out or if you can't, start a competition war which only the company with the biggest resources (Microsoft) will win. Microsoft are not nice people Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cranfield Posted February 2, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 Microsoft has an unfortunate anti-competative strategy.If there's a good rival product, buy them out or if you can't, start a competition war which only the company with the biggest resources (Microsoft) will win. Microsoft are not nice people Thats the basic growth policy of most successful Corporations, (its also part of the philosophy of poker). :blink: Expansion by acquisition is less risky and much quicker, than natural organic growth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaniel Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 I think its the in thing todo in IT at present....Purchase another company to expand your own. Its all about being able to offer a complete package to your client base....to make £££££££££££££ Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billett Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 There will be two main factors why Microsoft want to take over Yahoo; 1. As people have said in previous posts to increase their total users 2. Gates is due to step down very soon to Ballmer, and this will be his last major conquest before he does and what an achievement it would be if it happens Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-G Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 Hmm - I'm on BT broadband, which has some sort of link to Yahoo - so I'm running MS windows XP through a MS service provider. Can't say I see any real problem with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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