Monday, 02.04.08

Et tu, Yahoo?

David Paul Morris/Getty Images

Microsoft makes a hostile takeover bid for Yahoo! Google cries foul.

The notion of Microsoft as the ultimate corporate villain is so deeply ingrained that it's easy to forget that one of the most dominant brands in history is now the underdog. 

Well, not exactly the underdog. With revenues of almost $60 billion, Microsoft still dwarfs Google, which generates only $16.6 billion. But there's nevertheless a sense, in Redmond and elsewhere, that the initiative has shifted, and that Microsoft needs to do something dramatic if it is to once again seize the high ground. While Microsoft owns the old-fashioned desktop, Google increasingly owns what techies call "the cloud," the dense web of applications delivered to desktops, laptops, PDAs, phones, and all manner of new and unfamiliar gadgets through the internet. We're entering the age of ubiquitous computing, during which, like it or not, we will be connected always and everywhere. By acquiring Yahoo!, Microsoft hopes to gain a foothold in the cloud. But Yahoo!, product of the first pre-cloud internet boom, has become a lumbering dinosaur, an awkward collection of mismatched parts humbled by fast-moving mammals. So what happens when one dinosaur devours another? Indigestion, followed by a slow and painful death. The folks at Google, meanwhile, are crying foul, as though they are perfect innocents who are above the fray. What they should really do is clam up and let Micro-Hoo! fail on its own.
— Reihan Salam

Filed Under: business, computers, Microsoft, technology, Yahoo