Just doing the rounds: Bloomberg: Microsoft Offers to Buy Yahoo for $44.6 Billion, CNN: Microsoft bids $45 billion for Yahoo.
An interesting bit of news. Analysts at Google are probably laughing out loud because this means Microsoft is really scared now. Even with Microsofts own search technology, mapping products and other comparable offerings in the main markets where Microsoft, Google and Yahoo compete, Microsoft still wants to buy Yahoo and invest a lot in getting a better angle on the search and information market.
My view: If this deal goes through (I can imagine the FTC wants to see whether this could cause a search and information monopoly) we move towards two gigantic search and information companies. With the current wish for more privacy, even in the US and more awareness of the amounts of personal data gathered by companies, one of them will end up as the big bad evil data-hoarding company. Google was in danger of getting this title because they were slowish to respond to the increased awareness about privacy and data retention but when the competition in search and information is Microsoft, Google looks a lot better as the nice and user friendly company.
