macnn/electronista

03/10/2008, 8:35am, EDT

Monday, March 10th

MS: no immediate plans to merge Yahoo tech

Microsoft would not immediately begin merging technology if its proposed takeover of Yahoo goes through, the company's chief software architect Ray Ozzie has explained in an interview. Although the two companies often have competing technologies, Microsoft would move slowly to integrate either firm's technology with the other. The work climates and technical foundations are said to be too different to encourage an early start and could alienate users if forced together too quickly.

"Technology companies, if they dive in and just smash things together for smashing them together’s sake, it’s reckless," Ozzie says.

The Windows developer is primarily interested in Yahoo for its web ad platform, which would serve as a rival to Google's dominant system. However, both also run search engines, photo sharing services, news portals, and other services that frequently overlap with one another, creating conflicts of interest. Yahoo has been resisting the deal in an attempt to maintain independence and recently called Microsoft's unsolicited move a distraction from revitalizing its core business.


Filed under: industry
Other story tags: Microsoft, Google, Yahoo

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that's a switch
0
03/10, 10:31am, EDT
Gotta love how many of the news outlets make it sound like Yahoo HAS to take this offer, and it's just a matter of time before they do. Hats off to NN for not following suit.

Were I Yahoo, I'd be pissed that M$ keeps pressuring them which has some of its shareholders ready to sue to make the purchase happen, though any of those suits aren't likely to go through.

If M$ wants to keeping shooting itself in the foot, it won't be long before they don't have any feet for their rep to stand on.
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RIGHT!
0
03/10, 11:03am, EDT
Remember the Bungie buy out? MS said Halo was still going to come out on Mac simultaneously with the first release followed by other platforms.

You can't trust this company one bit (literally). Still, I say let them spend their money and lose it all. I feel bad for anybody who works at Yahoo, but to me this looks like one big long rope for MS to hang itself with.
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Closing in
0
03/10, 11:21am, EDT
Regardless of all the past attempts, the competition is closing in. Apple has done a good job of leaping ahead when the competition gets close, I wonder what they'll have in store this time?

If Apple comes out with a "Fuze-Lighter" before this thing hits the market, SanDisk's R&D money will yet again go up in smoke. I predict, no market boom for the Fuze, just a fizzle.

C'mon Apple, where's the next leap ahead?
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why
0
03/10, 11:23am, EDT
why do comments which are clearly made on other stories, keep popping up in the comments for unrelated stories? It seems to happen frequently. I don't believe there are that many clueless MacNN readers unaware of what browser window they are in.
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@climacs
0
03/10, 11:30am, EDT
I know it's a sometimes bug in the win version of Safari where if you have multiple NN sites open in tabs, sometimes hitting "submit" will post it in the forum entry test box of a page in another tab.

No other posting site has this issue. Wierd, isn't it?
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It's the commenting syste
0
03/10, 11:31am, EDT
If you open other stories in tabs, and comment on a given story, it gets posted to the last opened tab's story, and not the one you are viewing.

We have the thank MacNN's implementation of vBulletin, and their bad coders, for that.

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iPhone Pro
0
03/10, 11:34am, EDT
Dan - only if Apple add a Blackberry style keypad. But I think that could be a very effective way for them to market a business oriented iPhone against the consumer market one. Get the platform in place before the device.

One small thing : iPhones currently need iTunes for management. A lot of enterprise organisations do not allow the installation of Quicktime or iTunes on internal client PCs. It would not be rocket science to solve this by stripping down iTunes to an iPhone desktop client.
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No iTunes or QT?
0
03/10, 12:40pm, EDT
I happen to work at one of those places that uses filters to block iTunes and Qt downloads. It's done by a simple name filter. The easy solution is to bring the PC version with me on a flash disc from home and install it from there. The issue, however, would be that you can't download updateas through software update, but have to manually pull them down and install from an external drive as you did initially.

If IT is serious about making the iPhone happen, they will adjust filters to be more specific when relating to these two apps. The reason usually cited for filtering is to stop people from streaming music (oddly enough, I can stream music ONLY through iTunes- they haven't caught on yet).

Does anyone know what ports software updates and such use? If it is port specific, it'd be a simple change, or if your filters allow for specific sites to become exceptions to filter rules, then your necessary utilities would get through.

Personally, I see the point as mute. These hold-over measures might help, but when enough people clamor for adoption, especially those with hire/fire power, IT will have to relent.

I sincerely dount Apple will make a "business" iphone, their track record shows that "pro" models are simply more powerful and retain features that still use the same OS/software. The best you can hope for is an external keyboard connect via the dock connector. Look to a 3rd party for that little piece of hardware.

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Re: its the commenting...
0
03/10, 12:56pm, EDT
Actually, the really odd part is that it doesn't happen on the macnn site (it used to). Only on Electronista and iPodNN.
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