Which is what I predicted yesterday on my personal blog.
This, I think, shows Microsoft clearly to be a company in decline. They no longer are the Borg (and haven’t been referred to as such for years now, for that matter.) That they couldn’t pull this off shows them to be clumsy – and most importantly – a company other companies don’t want to be part of, a far cry indeed from the Microsoft of old.
What will happen to Yahoo? They certainly showed fight and determination here. They need to do the same with the multitude of sites and services. Many are quite excellent, but it is Google that is giving both companies the jitters.
I had actually read that most (about +60%) unsolicited take-over bids between public companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo do not go through, meaning that this was supposedly no surprise either.
I was never too keen on the whole MicroHoo thing, not out of utter dislike of Microsoft (coming from a Linux guy, I do respect Microsoft a lot). My stance on the whole thing could probably be better explained by a list I read in eWeek about “10 Reasons why Microsoft should/shouldn’t buy Yahoo!”, specifically, reason #3 (from the “shouldn’t” side):
“Microsoft would be better off spending its $50 billion on the next generation of technology instead of something two generations behind”
Very well said. Microsoft still has a TON of cash on hand. Ballmer is a VERY smart guy and with that kind of resources they’ll still able to find their footing, if they get their act together.
Only sad thing is that we’ve missed the chance to see them change the name of the company to “Microsoft!”.