Ok, the news has been spreading since this morning when Microsoft announced that they will buy one of the largest search engine companies in the world, Yahoo! Inc. It has been speculating that they had a really close relationship due to the Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger integration. Now that Microsoft is forking over $44.6 BILLION USD in cash and stock, one may wonder ... what will Microsoft buy next? The whole Internet?

More on Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080...pping-cart.html

I'm totally against this takeover since I use some of Yahoo's services due to my ISP, since they have an agreement with Yahoo! to host all my emails and etc. This also means that if this goes through, all major Canadian ISP services are in the mercy of Microsoft since Bell already uses Microsoft services in the first place.

xboxrulz

WoW.. 44.6 Billion is alot

I think it would be cool if microsoft bought Yahoo!. Because I don't use Yahoo! normally.. I don't know why, but I don't like it so much. But if microsoft buy it, maybe i'll start to use it

It won't be that cool since that means Microsoft is going to be buying other services like Flickr and etc., thus shrinking competition and make this race even harder as an industry, causing an oligopoly.

xboxrulz

I don't exactly know what flickr is =/

But maybe you are right =/ I ain't the best one to talk about theese stuff.. But if they bought all the internet services and stuff, or atleast some of them, wouldn't it be better. then we know who we can sue when they do something wrong

This post has been edited by Feelay: Feb 1 2008, 06:44 PM

I see Microsoft is aiming for more and more power. Its acting like those dumb students in class who try to catch up by copying ideas or buying them off.

Taking over Yahoo may no doubt make Microsoft rich and gain more control, but there is nothing innovative I see other than connecting more people or giving same old services under one larger roof. It looks like they are losing their interest in Operating Systems.

Hungry M$ needs to chill n relax.

The possible take over also has me concerned. I normally use Hotmail for my email but Yahoo! Messenger for instant messaging. I also have a large amount of time invested into Messenger so I would be slightly disappointed if it just went poof. If this does happen then it would be interesting to see which services win. Currently Yahoo! dominates in email and IM users but Microsoft has strongholds in other areas. I have a feeling that it would be gradual (5+ years) but all of the Yahoo! branded services would eventually disappear.

That is if Yahoo! takes the bait. This has been going on for three years and it hasn’t happened yet.

Innovation isn't even on Microsoft's list ... all they care is "search, buy, destroy."

xboxrulz

I seriously hope they reconsider. They have their live search anyway.

Channel 7 only bought Yahoo Australia a few years ago.

I'd rather not see yahoo go down hill, can't they buy ask or dogpile or one of the search engines I don't use instead?

I don't use Yahoo! much, I prefer Google and Windows Live services. Yahoo! is not that appealing to me because most of my friends do not use Yahoo! services.

Have you ever thought of how the MSN address is http://sympatico.msn.com, not just http://msn.ca? This is because they are in a partnership with Bell Sympatico, a Canadian company.

This is a pretty shocking thing because isn't Windows Live supposed to compete with Yahoo!?

This post has been edited by FirefoxRocks: Feb 2 2008, 01:36 AM

ummm... only http://www.msn.ca leads to http://sympatico.msn.com. MSN.com doesn't go there.

xboxrulz