Submitted by The rumours and back-and-forths have been going on for as long as I can remember, but today, the deal was finally announced: Microsoft and Yahoo! have tied the knot – but only strictly related to internet search and advertising. The move is supposed to help both Yahoo! and Microsoft in their competition with Google.
The deal covers a whole boatload of things, but the most important one is that Bing will become the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! web sites. In addition, Yahoo! will be the “exclusive worldwide relationship sales force” for the companies’ premium search advertisers. Microsoft’s AdCenter will take care of self-serve advertising.
Also of note is that Microsoft will gain an exclusive 10 year license to all of Yahoo!’s search technologies, and they will be allowed to integrate said technologies into Microsoft search platforms. The deal will last for 10 years, and has been in the works for over 2 years.
Yahoo is clearly happy with the deal. “This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo!, our users, and the industry. And I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of Internet innovation and development,” said Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz, “Users will continue to experience search as a vital part of their Yahoo! experiences and will enjoy increased innovation thanks to the scale and resources this deal provides. Advertisers will also benefit from scale and enjoy greater ease of use and efficiencies working with a single platform and sales team for premium advertisers.”
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer touts the innovation horn. “Through this agreement with Yahoo!, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers, and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company,” said Ballmer, “Success in search requires both innovation and scale. With our new Bing search platform, we’ve created breakthrough innovation and features. This agreement with Yahoo! will provide the scale we need to deliver even more rapid advances in relevancy and usefulness. Microsoft and Yahoo! know there’s so much more that search could be. This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search.”
Wait a few years..
MS continue to update the Bing engine and decide there is no longer the need for Yahoo to see the adverts (they can bring that inhouse)
MS have Bing which has been activly developed
Yahoo can see adverts for their search engine which is now way behind the times…
they have just agreed to wipe off a major part of the value of ther company. SHort-term though the will have more revenue, but I don’t think that will last
Funny how when Google did it it was almost put on trial for monopoly behavior and when Microsoft does it it’s all fine and ok.
BTW that’s how Microsoft usually kill it’s competiton partner with it steal other advantage , plus people and technology and leave partner in the dust by claiming they do thing better.
I hope Yahoo have counted their fingers after that handshake.
Exactly. I would think this would fall under the category of collusion except that they are not trying to keep it a secret that they two, totally unrelated companies, are coming together to try to harm the market standing of another.
Didn’t you know? According to the new US anti-trust investigators, “Microsoft aren’t the problem”. !
Where are the [sarcasm] tags when you need them?
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aG9B5.J3Bl1w
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aAgJd1ukypp8
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ap9hu2Dr07U0
Microsoft is this , very poor , very little , small company who is allowed to do criminal things because other do so and that they would be at a disadvantage
if they did not.
“The greatest trick Microsoft ever pulled was convincing the world that it was harmless and changed it’s ways.”
Edited 2009-07-29 14:11 UTC
In what world is Microsoft a monopolist in the search and online advertising market?
Prevention of a monopolist is why Google (the overwhelmingly dominant market leader) isn’t allowed to make such deals.
In this one , Microsoft is a criminal corporation found guitly of crime and of being a monopoly.
If you prevent the creation of a monopoly , you don’t let a guilty one do what you prevented from a lawful company who aint one yet and probably never will be.
Majority Marketshare don’t create monopoly or antitrust. It’s when your the only one able to survive or you do it criminally that there is a problem.
Microsoft as been #1 illegally on the desktop for decades , killing and illegaly preventing competition.
Google as only recently taken over the majority marketshare in Search engine. They don’t kill other Search engine and they don’t prevent any other from creation and competiting.
So how are they a “criminal organization”?
Losing a civil antitrust suit or being declared guilty of violating civil antitrust law by the EC doesn’t equate to criminality any more than getting a speeding ticket does. Not all violations of law are “criminal”, in fact, most aren’t.
LOTS of companies have lossed civil suits and one time or another in their history. Are they all “criminal organizations” according to you?
Here are some difference between criminal and civil law:
In order to be found guilty of a crime (i.e. criminal law), one must be found guilty by a unanimous jury of 12 jurors (in the US, at least), beyond a reasonable doubt. And in a criminal trial, the accuse is not required to take the stand (in the US, at least).
On the other hand, in order to be found liable of violating civil law, a single judge or a jury panel (which can have fewer than 12 members (as little as 5), and many times doesn’t have to be unanimous) must find the accused liable according to the “preponderence of evidence” (which means 50% of the evidence plus 1, and is a much lower burden of proof than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” necessary for criminal conviction). And (in the US) the accused cannot refuse to take the stand in a civil trial, unlike with criminal trials.
Lastly, in the EU, the EC can declare a party guilty of violating civil antitrust law without even going through a trial at all. The EU does not allow that for criminal law.
The difference between civil and criminal law actually matters. If the MS/DOJ case had actually been a criminal matter, then the DOJ would have had to prove its case “beyond a reasonable doubt” according to a unanimous 12-member jury, and Microsoft officials wouldn’t have been compelled to testify (the defense could call them to voluntarily testify, of course). Looking at the evidence of the MS/DOJ trial, there’s no way in hell that the DOJ would have met the “beyond a reasonable doubt” burden, so Microsoft would have walked away scott-free.
But since it was a civil trial, the DOJ only had to prove its case to a single judge (a moron, at that) according to “preponderance of evidence” (50%+1 of the evidence).
So the difference between civil and criminal law actually matters. You have a history of ignoring the differences and have played fast and loose with the term “criminal organization” (and the like). You’ve been told the difference before, but you continue to spout your false talking points. You are either ignorant and refuse to learn, or you know better and are simply lying.
I totally agree with you on that. Microsoft is a very small player in the search and online advertising. By combining hands with Yahoo, they have a good chance of taking a shot at google. Which IMHO is a good thing, since google’s dominance on the search is/was disturbing.
As an example, a local yoga center here got a wrong phone number listed on google. Whenever I called them, the number did not go through and I thought they have closed their location. They don’t have a website. However I was able to find correct number on bing. When I told them about google, they were like yeah we have been asking google to fix it for over a month! This is what can happen, if there is only 1 player in the market.
You see the picture?
While I am the first one in line advocating competition, do you REALLY want Microsoft to take Google’s place? Do we really want Microsoft to be #1 in ANOTHER market, considering their past behavior?
I don’t care who is #1 as long as there is competition. Look at XBOX, Microsoft has done a great job there. And it seems from reviews that Windows 7 is also a great OS.
In both the areas, they have competion but they are also number 1. So MS being #1 in search/ads is fine with me, as long as their is a solid competition as well.
In fact, lately google search has been subpar.
Edited 2009-07-29 18:42 UTC
“Look at XBOX, Microsoft has done a great job there.”
Yeah, by the only means they know: by locking in exclusivity deals and in turn removing consumer choice. Pretty much no different to the OEM exclusivity deals that prevented PC buyers from buying a machine that doesn’t run Windows up until quite recently.
If you think that’s a great job then you deserve what’s coming to you.
Edited 2009-07-29 20:23 UTC
Why is it then that Microsoft is allowed to make deals with the likes of ASUS so that ASUS pulls products from trade shows …
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/48409524/m/81000…
and then creates websites such as “works better with Windows”.
http://www.itsbetterwithwindows.com/
Better than what? I can’t see how a device with a Snapdragon CPU works better with Windows when Windows isn’t available at all for it.
Why is ASUS advertising Windows? Why has ASUS withdrawn any choice of OS to its customers? Why would ASUS bring the best new product to Computex for display, show it working well, start a great buzz around the product … then withdraw it all of a sudden the very next day?
Edited 2009-07-30 01:48 UTC
Neither is Microsoft:
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090729-716340.html
Microsoft is non existent in the web space outside of hotmail (not counting microsoft.com which is a corporate portal not a service) Between them, google and yahoo own most of the major web properties. Microsoft buying yahoo outright would mean they were in the game, google buying yahoo would remove the last shreds of competition in the advertising and search markets.
MS may have dominated the PC OS market, but they have been thrashing wildly but accomplishing nothing in the web world for years now.
I wonder how this is going to impact Jboss? I hope Yahoo doesn’t sign on with some of MS’s other producs, I rather like some most of yahoo’s stuff like Zimbra. I personally like the results i recieve from yahoo more than i like the results I see when using Bing.
Guize, let’s wait a couple of months, we’ll see Yahoo decline, and after some time they will be out of the business. That’s what usually happen to Microsoft allies.
Yahoo needs the money and MS needs the influence. Before this deal, bing.com made no sense whatsoever, after it still seems like a dumb idea, but at least they have a chance in hell of actually having a working business model out of it.
… and that’s NO compliment. Yahoo recently announced an upcoming change to their home page, and a preview link, in response I sent them a ‘review’, let me share that with you.
This mirrors my own take on the “Wave 3” version of Live Mail, one of the most convoluted and needlessly complex, much less destructive to accessibility and navigation of any mail service – as I reviewed elsewhere:
http://my.opera.com/deathshadow/blog/2008/11/05/rubbish-code-from-a…
These two groups of sleazeball developers DESERVE each-other, maybe they can hit that magical 1000:1 code to content ratio like the old days of charging by the K-LOC. I’ve actually begun to wonder if in terms of web development they are getting paid by how much code they write and not the quality of it.
But of course one doesn’t have to write professional quality code to work as a web professional since the suits in marketing are too ***** stupid to know any better.
Edited 2009-07-30 00:37 UTC
I would definitely like to see MS become a player in the search engine market. The fact that I instinctively go to google.com when I don’t have any site to go to scares the heck out of me.