Who Will Buy Yahoo!?!

As you have probably heard, on Friday Microsoft placed a bid to takeover Yahoo! for $44.6 billion.

Yahoo! is the second most popular Internet search engine after Google - but there are some considerable differences in search hits between the two. Yahoo! has been struggling for some time, with falling advertising revenues and dwindling share prices, and the dominance of Google as the search engine of choice for many which has really put a strain on Yahoo!’s operations.

Microsoft claim that Google are dominating the market and a takeover of Yahoo! would encourage healthier competition. “Today this market is increasingly dominated by one player. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a competitive choice while better fulfilling the needs of customers and partners,” said the press statement from Microsoft.

Google, on the other hand, have expressed their concern about such a takeover bid. “Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies — and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets” says David Drummond, Senior Vice President, on their blog.
Microsoft’s plan could potentially backfire as Yahoo! now begin to quickly seek out other ways to stay independent and could potentially push it closer towards rival Google.

One thing’s for sure - the future of Yahoo! is about to take a turn in some kind of new direction. I personally just hope it’s neither Microsoft or Google that end up holding the reigns.