05/19/2008, 8:20am, EDT
Monday, May 19thMS to buy Yahoo search, then Facebook?
Microsoft's proposed partial deal with Yahoo may see a buyout of the company's search platform in a bid to create a new, alternative challenge to Google, according to tips from those purportedly aware of the negotiations. Rather than buy out all of Yahoo or else strike a license deal, Microsoft will buy Yahoo's core search business and may complete a transaction as early as this week.
What Microsoft will do with the property isn't clear, though speculation would have Microsoft acquire Facebook and merge Yahoo's search staff into the social networking site, creating a much stronger platform for Microsoft's ads than the company has had in the past. The effort would help appease investors and would defuse a hostile attempt by Carl Icahn to replace the Yahoo board with new directors pushing for a full takeover by Microsoft.
The copmany already owns a minority stake in Facebook and so could more easily extend its influence there in place of completely taking over a larger firm.
Microsoft's own Windows Live Search is also often considered a distant third place in the search market and could potentially be replaced by the second-place Yahoo engine, though none of the sources have indicated any immediate plans for such a move.
Filed under: industry
Other story tags: Microsoft, Yahoo, Icahn, Windows Live
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yahoo w/o search?
hmmm interesting concept but then why go to Yahoo? Do they figure Google has completely won out in the search category?
I wonder...
What will they do after they buy them out and everybody quits using them?
ahh, microsoft.
Still looking for what they do well. :P
Frankenstein lives!
Windows Live Search is third not because it fails at being a decent search engine, but because it's Microsoft! Having Yahoo's engine in, or its database, or its employees won't change the public's perception.
The whole idea behind the earlier deal was about acquiring Yahoo's brand and continue to run Yahoo.com as is. Yahoo has street credit in search biz, Microsoft does not. And whatever lands behind Microsoft's search engine won't change that. They could acquire Google's technology for that matter, that wouldn't make Windows Live Search any more popular.
I guess MS doesn't really care about that much. Perhaps the Yahoo deal is enough credit to convince large corporations they need to start advertising on its search engine results...
By the way, I though Yahoo was more a site index (think Yellow Pages), than a search engine site... And relied on other real search engines for more complete results... or has that changed?
Yahoo and search engine
SillyPooh: That changed many years ago. Today you'll find search on most every Yahoo page you see. BTW, if you want the "Google-like" search experience from Yahoo you can use http://search.yahoo.com/.
Silly boy
Sillypooh. You are in fact silly. Believe it or not, a large percentage of the world does not agree that Microsoft is the devil and the company's name on the product is not a reason to steer away alone. Its as if you forget that apple computers make up a very small minority.
And I believe that if this deal goes through, a large portion of previous yahoo search users will continue with the MSN/yahoo search spinoff. Pretty reasonable thinking. Not to mention, MSN would automatically become number two.