

Why Yahoo Should Say Yes To Microsoft - reitzensteinm
http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/02/03/why-yahoo-should-say-yes-to-microsoft/

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ekanes
Mark Cuban is a heck of a bright guy, but he's wrong on this one. Just do a
gut check after reading his opening paragraph:

"One thing about Jerry Yang that I always have admired is that he cares. He
cares about his employees. He cares about his products. He cares about his
shareholders. Most of all he cares about building a world class company that
can be great at what it does."

And the solution to building a great company is to allow it to be swallowed by
_Microsoft_ , most likely losing its best employees and its brand in the
process?

Sorry, no.

(The deal might be the best option for _shareholders_ , but when you talk
about building a Great Company, you should be thinking of more than just money
imho)

~~~
mattmaroon
He is thinking of more than just money, and in his argument, that's exactly
why Yahoo should sell. Then they could focus on building great products rather
than bending to the will of Wall Street.

~~~
davidw
Because their options vest and they can leave with a bunch of cash to do
startups with, if the deal happens? "Microsoft" is not a brand I associate
with "focus on building great products". I guess that's a bit of a cheap shot,
and at one point in time, they certainly outcompeted everyone else to win what
would go on to become their monopoly, but still, I just don't see anyone
focusing much on anything with two big icebergs crashing into one another, let
alone 'great products' free from political interference.

~~~
mattmaroon
Because MS is one of the few companies willing to ignore Wall Street to work
on long term viability.

Did you guys even read the article, or is this just knee-jerk anti-Microsoft
sentiment.

~~~
davidw
If they're so into long term, how come they're so late to the game in terms of
internet stuff? There's a difference between "don't have as many people
breathing down their necks as everyone else does", and the actual corporate
culture at Microsoft. The first thing could be a very positive thing, the
second is not a point in their favor from everything I see.

I think the vision of Microsoft as this white knight that will come along and
gently put some breath into Yahoo's sails is to ignore the nuts and bolts
reality of how Microsoft has approached this sort of thing in the past. I
could always be wrong, and they've learned their lessons, but only time will
tell, and I wouldn't bet on it.

~~~
mattmaroon
They're certainly not agile, nor are they perfect. No question about that. But
they do have a long history of ignoring Wall Street while working on building
long term profitability. The Xbox360 and the Zune are good recent examples.
Though the Zune has yet to materialize as a major profit source, and honestly
may never, they're definitely going against the wishes of investors to try to
become more of a player in the consumer space.

My personal feelings aside as to whether or not MS/Yahoo is a good idea, Cuban
is right in that it will allow Yahoo to focus on the long term in a way that
remaining independent (if that's even an option, which it probably isn't) will
not.

~~~
davidw
There's definitely some logic in that, but my gut feeling is that all the
'hullabaloo' surrounding the merger would supersede that effect. Hirings,
firings, integrations, strategies, turf wars, technology conflicts, etc...
will not be an easy thing to keep under control and out of everyone's way in
order to let them concentrate clearly on the future. If they manage to, then
what you're saying will come into effect.

------
samson
I perhaps one of the exceptions on hackernews (at least seems that way), to
think that this perhaps is a good alternative for yahoo. The other possiblity
is that yahoo could go on being independent for anouther 3-5 years and be
continually dominated by Google.

Listening to Jerry Yang CES keynote was hardly optmistic, and if I was a
shareholder watching that i'd have been disappointed. Google is going from
$300,$400,$500,$600, to even $700/share. And prior to Microsoft annoucement,
YHOO shares fallen back to a price they were trading at 4 years ago.

Not only that, you consider over the years, Yahoo has had more then good
opportunities to buyout big companies when they were small like Google and
Ebay, and the recent future Facebook (which is small but could very well
become big one day).

This is obviously not a match made in heaven with Microsoft and Yahoo. But
there are clearly facts here. If you think Yahoo is only temporarily at low
point in their history and sooner or later they'll bounce back, then Microsoft
should not pass off the opportunity to buy them now. If you think their at a
low point, and they could possible go lower, then God damn, they should
looking for mergers rather than choosing to die a slow an painlful death at
the hands of Google.

Lets for a moment(if possible) stop thinking like mere coders and pretend as
least to think like astute businessmen.

