Massive Destruction Of Shareholder Value, Employee Morale and Internet Balance... - The Diigo Meta page

• 16 Jun 08
  

  Antonio Tombolini

  Perché e percome l'accordo Yahoo! / Google è sbagliato per tutti.

  Yahoo! Google Microsoft internet

• 14 Jun 08
  

  Takuya Homma

  GoogleHoo

• 

  fst fst

  Arrington schäumt. «As much as everyone still has lingering doubts about Microsoft after their hardball monopolistic practices of the nineties, it’s clear that they, along with Yahoo, were the only force counterbalancing the massive presence of Google in search marketing.
  Without them, Google would continue to keep the lion’s share of search marketing dollars to themselves, and distribute next to nothing to third party publishers. »

  Google Yahoo Microsoft 2008 Michael Arrington Suchmaschinen Onlinewerbung

  • As much as everyone still has lingering doubts about Microsoft after their hardball monopolistic practices of the nineties, it’s clear that they, along with Yahoo, were the only force counterbalancing the massive presence of Google in search marketing.

    
    

    Without them, Google would continue to keep the lion’s share of search marketing dollars to themselves, and distribute next to nothing to third party publishers.

• 

  Jan Gondol

  • When I accused Yahoo of playing the crazy card in their negotiations with Microsoft, I never thought these people were actually insane. Handing Google a monopoly in search marketing was just a ploy, I thought. A way to get Microsoft to bid a little higher than $31 per share.

    
    

    But it turns out I was wrong. Yahoo’s hatred of Microsoft runs so deep that they were actually, in the end, willing to destroy the future of their company just to keep it independent for a short while longer.

  • Now, with Yahoo taken out of the game, it’s unclear that Microsoft can fight Google on its own. How long will they pour profits from Windows and Office into trying to compete in search?

    
    

    The delicate power balance among the big players was disrupted today in a big way, and the consequences will be felt over the coming months and years. We needed a competitive market in search to ensure the health of the Internet. Now, it’s nearly impossible to see how that can happen.

    
    

    It took me about five minutes of watching Yahoo’s top two executives talk last month to realize that they had no fight left in them. The fact that they simply gave up wouldn’t matter so much if the only people hurt by their actions were their employees and stockholders. But that just isn’t the case, and now we all have to deal with the fallout.

  • 67 more annotations...

  • • Y! will sync up to $33, or $43, before long.. just give it a little time, no surprise needed.

      
      

      Didn’t we see that before? Yes we did!

    • THANK YOU FOR NOT WRITING ABOUT FACEBOOK. It’s a miracle!
    • A Microsoft acquisition would have been disastrous for Yahoo, with little left afterwards to show for it but temporary benefits from the acquisition of Yahoo’s ad network.
    • Hey Yang, you may have billions to waste on your ego trip. I don’t! Quit fuckin’ with my portfolio!
    • I believe in Yahoo and in their strategy. They can secure some cashflow while working on R&D to develop their tools for better search and search monetizing.
      
      “To Know your Enemy, you have to become your enemy.” — Sun Tzu
    • I think it just reveals that, at heart, YHOO is just another publisher - they started as web editors as opposed to GOOGs efforts to be web organizers.
    • Well, you bet that there are many people around the world who are rejoicing that MS couldn’t get their hands on Yahoo and I’m one of them : I would have felt dirty if I had to pay money to MS for using Flickr…
    • Seriously, “Massive Destruction of Shareholder Value?” Talk about hyperbole; the shares dropped $3 or about 10% in a day. But they’re up from before the speculation about the bid from Microsoft. Meanwhile the entire stock market has tanked about 10% in the last year and about 6% in the last month! In fact, those who owned Yahoo before the bid have seen shareprice rise by 40% even with the recent drop. Think what you want of Microsoft’s bid and Yahoo’s rejection, but don’t go all crazy yourself throwing around financial terms that make no sense.
    • Even after the MS deal has died, YHOO is trading at $23.52 - which is still much higher than the $18 figure they started the year with. So I guess something good did come out of all this action.

    • michael is a jack of all trades, and a master of only one - arrogant jackassery. You will frequently see his ridiculous “insight” on financial matters as well as deep technology (hell, I doubt he’s even functionally familiar with most web tech).

      
      

      this series of posts on yahoo/google has one running theme “I MICHAEL ARRINGTON POSTED THIS STORY AND HAVE THE INFLUENCE TO BRING DOWN YAHOO’S STOCK.”

    • michael is a jack of all trades, and a master of only one - arrogant jackassery. You will frequently see his ridiculous “insight” on financial matters as well as deep technology (hell, I doubt he’s even functionally familiar with most web tech).
    • Microsoft has never been very good at web business (Live/Hotmail still puts legit mail in spam and spam in my mail box). IMHO MS would probably chase even more users away from Yahoo.
    • If I was an avid Yahoo user and suddenly found Microsoft branding on all my favourite services I would probably take my online life elsewhere. Thats not because Im anti MS but rather because I use Yahoo because I like the way Yahoos services work and look and I probably don’t like the way MS services work or look.
    • Y has perhaps some of the most compelling opportunities for social graphs based on consumer interaction with content. Maybe with new mgmt they can capitalize on this.
    • Afraid of death, they committed suicide.
    • My only hope is that google does not turn in a greedy giant like microsoft.

    • This drop in stock price is just knee jerk reaction. Long term, this is good for share holders.

      
      

      It is better to partner with winner and be part of growing business rather than partnering with looser and both sinking.

    • Game theory perhaps…non exclusive leaves the door open for Microsoft to still bid. The search market will be about the phone in the Asian and Middle East markets and that is where the value lies in Microsoft buying into Yahoo!
    • And the lamb layeth before the lion. Stupid Yahoo!
    • you should probably add “a boatload of Yahoo!’s customers” to the list of people who never wanted a merger. The unspoken plain truth of this crap idea of a merger was always that the products would suffer - and despite the internet zeitgeist of the moment, Yahoo! has solid products, and many are far superior to Microsoft’s.
    • many of these “shareholders” were anything but - options, shorts, and newcomers. I, for one, have owned Yahoo! stock the whole time and never wanted to see such a good company in Microsoft’s hands. Maybe Yang’s lost the plot, but no one ever made a convincing argument Balmer had a plot
    • The stock market goes up and down all the time, and it usually always happens after news like this. Like, after Steve announced the 3G iPhone, stocks went up, if he hadn’t announced it, stocks would have dropped like a tonne of bricks. Would it mean Apple is about to die? Nope. Does this mean Yahoo! is about to die? Nope
    • Story ain’t over, boss — oh yes, Yahoo could do with a non-geek boss, the way uncle Schmidt has shaped Google.
    • Its best for Yahoo to remain independent and try to hire some people to come up with a good monetization plan, while also cutting back on some of the “design by committee” people that they have.

    • the problem seems to be top heavy managers. Google will have the same problem in not too many years hence too, as they are leaning towards managing everything to death.

      
      

      Speaking of managing stuff to death, that’s why Microsoft has not done anything innovative in the last 10 years.

    • It’s better to have the three major outlets for online content, each with their own particular strengths, owned by three companies rather than two. I don’t see much way around that logic at this point.
    • Because people like you and Icahn don’t write code, you don’t know how to create usable products, you don’t begin to know what it means to produce code that delivers value.
    • So the Yahoo people don’t want to work at Microsoft. That’s simple. They don’t respect the sh*t Microsoft engineers write. Do you blame them? To Yahoo engineers, money is not everything, the code is. This the likes of Icahn cannot comprehend.
    • i think yahoo has made smartest and safest move, its not a short-term decision where u take money and run - this is a long term move

    • It’s basically all upside for Google and some short term cash for Yahoo. Their top executives are jumping ship as fast as they can and the company is in disarray.

      
      

      What a mess.

    • For Yang, I imagine he still sees Yahoo as a viable business based around a strong loyal community of users and the Google deal allows the company to continue intact.
    • Mike, you’re thinking from only one point of view (money, money, money) - you forgot that there are 3 important stakeholder (employee, endusers and share holders) - you’re only thinking about shareholders and not other 2
    • What’s the big deal? Google was always going to consolidate search anyway. A MSFT/YHOO combo was powerless against Google. So this deal is just accepting the inevitable.
    • Yahoo made lots of bad biz decisions in the past. One of the worst was the Overture Acquisition, that’s why they were so desperate to launch the Panama Project to fix its ad system. It seems they gave it up… by giving the virtual monopoly to Google, Y! is saying there are no more way outs. RIP Yahoo.
    • This is the right time to buy YHOO
      
      It will bounce back and make me a million bucks
    • You are totally off the mark. Yahoo! doesn’t need the money from this to be a going concern. They are in fine financial shape.
    • Don’t be so grim about this. Yahoo still dominates display advertising.
    • Whether the deal is approved or not, Yahoo has told the market they have given up and surrender on online ads.
    • Lots of comments here about “Yahoo is just fine, this is no big deal.” Stock is tanking, core competencies are being outsourced, key employees are leaving in droves. Yahoo is *not* fine. They are now, for all intents and purposes, an also-ran that is increasingly irrelevant.
    • Beginning of the end for Yahoo? It is beyond me why the media keeps suggesting Yahoo and Google are in the same business and that search is everything. Google does one thing well. The majority of their prodcuts are worthless. Yahoo is a content portal. It has the number one site for Finance and Sports (by traffic) and the top email. They also lead the industry in display advertising

    • The media is in a frenzy on this deal and they all seem to miss the fact that Yahoo is not a search engine and Google is not a content company.

      
      

      This is just typical of Wall St analysts who have no real comprehension of the business they report on…

      
      

      I am long on Yahoo - This was a smart move and will work out well for them moving forward.

    • Hating Microsoft is more important than any of the following:

      
      

      1) Customers
      
      2) Shareholder Value
      
      3) Employee Morale

      
      

      These ego-centric narccisistic leaders would rather put all the above in the toilet than ever work with Bill or admit that partnering with or selling to Microsoft is a good business move.

    • The stock was at $19 in February. So depending on how you look at it, they’ve actually created tremendous shareholder value since then: +30% versus +5% for the Nasdaq over the same time.
      
      (even if all that was solely due to the rumour mill rather than performance).

    • I think you are leaving out some of Yahoo’s key assets:

      
      

      #1 position in Mail
      
      #2 position in search
      
      #2 (or #1) in page views
      
      A great amount of talent _despite_ the recent losses; only a few major companies in the Valley could argue they have more

    • In February, Techcrunch discussed the potential of Yahoo dramatically opening up APIs - search, mail, advertising, as well as small properties like jobs, personals, answers.

      
      

      Exposing the data behind these services more and letting users improve them could enlist thousands more sharp developers than currently for free, quickly. Google doesn’t need to take such risks, the position of the incumbent. Yahoo has resources to ride such a strategy out.

    • Umm, the stock dropped like 10%. That’s not unusual for for a tech stock to do. AAPL dropped 10% between Wednesday and this morning because Steve Jobs looked thin on stage. But it’s starting to recover, as YHOO will. YHOO is still well above where it was before this whole Microsoft thing started.
    • Mike, why is it Yahoo!’s responsibility to ensure a competitive market for search? I’m not saying I agree with Jerry’s recent decisions, but conceptually, I’d argue that competition is the market’s burden, not Yahoo!’s. Should Amazon throw more resources into auctions so that eBay has some competition, or is Amazon better off cutting it’s looses in the auctions vertical and focusing elsewhere (web services, etc)? As an advertiser, I fear a Google monopoly in search. However, as a Yahoo! shareholder, I want Jerry to do what’s best for his company even if that results in a Google monopoly.
    • Mike. You don’t have a clue about software. Have you ever written software? No. Coders are definitely not “easily replaced”. As a matter of fact, they are very difficult to replace, and the best coders are nearly impossible to hire.

    • while I perfectly know that corporations have an obligation to stockholders, I feel that specifically THAT mentality is poison and evil.

      
      

      A company should do what is best for the company, and hold to their values. In the world we live in, it seems the hyenas are calling for blood if everybody doesn’t have a price that they can sell themselves at.

      
      

      Integrity and purpose seems secondary to doing what makes the most money.

    • If I suggested to Mike that I’d buy him for $500, I’d expect him to decline me, and he’d be right to do so. What I wouldn’t expect is everyone calling for Mike’s head for doing so.

    • Let’s compare the switching cost for end users:

      
      

      Switching from Windows to Mac OS?
      
      Switching from MS Office to ??? (any worth-mention subtitue?) ???
      
      Switching from Google search to Alta-Vista? Live Search? Yahoo!????

      
      

      Google Monopoly?

    • I fail to see how Yahoo traded their future.

      
      

      Their ad platform has been underperforming by a huge percentage to Google’s and they haven’t been able to fix this difference since 2003 and it was finally time to pull the plug.

    • Michael — your reasoning is VERY short-term focused. If I’m Yahoo and I think the only way to grow is to remain independent (which I think is true), then no way I sell to a company that will kill my soul.
    • It’s a bump in the road, and Yahoo will get over it. Like a spoiled child who always gets their way, Microsoft needs to be told “no” once in awhile and I applaud Yahoo for doing it.
    • So what was the choice for Yahoo’s future? Be consumed and absorbed by Microsoft making ONLY the investors the winners OR ride the rocky road of innovation to happier users AND hopefully better share value over a longer term as an *independent* Yahoo. If you care about the company and the consumers and the longevity of the company over fattening the wallets of the investors the choice is rather obvious.
    • the employees AREN’T loyal to Yahoo. Yahoo is bleeding and they know it. Anybody else see the plane over 101/280 the other day pulling the Yahoo jobs banner?

    • The Microsoft hostile move backfired on Microsoft and pushed Yahoo! closer to Google. Yahoo! finally woke up and did what they should have done years ago, cede search monetization to Google who simply does it better and will always do this era of search better than anyone else.

      
      

      Now Yahoo! will do what it needs to do. Clean house, get lean, get out of businesses it shouldn’t be in. Focus on what it’s good at. And start making money and growing again.

    • Yahoo, with all its flaws, is an innovative company. Microsoft hardly ever created anything innovative. All of its cash cows were created by others, copied by Microsoft and then commoditized.
    • Nothing Microsoft tried on the web is successful. Why would something better come out by acquiring Yahoo? Microsoft would have made it as mediocre as msn and live search, and eventually would have killed it all together.
    • Most mega mergers (and not mega ones) do not work out. 1 + 1 often results in less than 2.
    • Microsoft ONLY entered the search field because they could see the money it was generating. They did not innovate, they copied.
    • Yahoo should stick to what it’s best at…Web generated content and community based web apps.

    • The value of their content will become increasingly marginalized until they are swallowed by a stodgy old world media company and be relegated to stepchild status not unlike their dimwitted, special-ed, short-bus riding peer AOL.

      
      

      If I was a stockholder I’d be pissed. If I were an employee I’d be hanging at the bar and sending out resumes.

    • yahoo has no future. innovative killing corporate culture is completely entrenched and unfortunately it does not have a viable cash cow product like microsoft or oracle to justify over 40 billion valuation in long run. Outsourcing core business is incredibly stupid. It has survived by acquisitions for long time. Soon it will run out of $. Yang: remember excite. that is your future.

    • Not to put to fine a point on it, but how in the world did TWO of the nine board members at Yahoo! come from Northwest airlines. AN AIRLINE!?!? Northwest?!?

      
      

      I would say that Yahoo! has not a single brand name, high-quality, technology luminary on their board.

    • For someone who sees Yahoo/Microsoft/Google comparisons as apple to orange, he/she must forget about the changing competitive environment. If you don’t diversify and just stick to a single product, you’d be dead in a blink. Neither Microsoft, Yahoo or Google is about a single type of product. Having a right direction/vision for the future is more important.
    • this really means a fresh era of consolidation. Not only in the leading internet platforms like Google and Microsoft but also in other prominent web companies; as they struggle to regain the market share.
• 13 Jun 08
  

  Phil Chanet
  • Massive Destruction Of Shareholder Value, Employee Morale and Internet Balance Of Power

Would you like to comment?

Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.