Laying off talented web designers seems like the worst possible strategy for Yahoo.
Unless your strategy is “get acquired by Microsoft”.
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11 Responses:
December 12th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
You mean Depends like the adult under garment right? Then I couldn’t agree more with your assessment.
December 12th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I still don’t get it.
Microsoft doesn’t want Yahoo’s contrary executives, or their competing brands, or their non-Windows server infrastructure, or their existing non->.NET codebase; I just always assumed that the talented developers were what Microsoft hoped to gain from Yahoo to begin with.
December 12th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
I want google to acquire them to flickr is linked to my google world.
December 13th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I’m with Bergamot here.
Perhaps the Macalope’s implication is that Microsoft just wants Yahoo!’s users and doesn’t give two craps about, y’know, the people responsible for gaining them users in the first place. That would be a very typically corporate perspective to have, but surely MS isn’t that stupid.
December 14th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
There is nothing in Yahoo’s technology stack that could not be duplicated by reading all of the papers published by Google Research. MS is hoping for a network effect here: the fusion of Live and Yahoo traffic would be great enough to launch the combined brand into the public consciousness, and more importantly the advertisers’ consciousness.
Most of the talented people still there will leave if the acquisition goes through, and Microsoft knows that. Remember: because turnover is so high in mature web companies, the people who actually got the system up and running have already left. Nobody buys a mature company for the employees.
December 15th, 2008 at 7:02 am
[...] And the Macelope snorts back: Unless your strategy is “get acquired by Microsoft”. [...]
December 15th, 2008 at 8:29 am
I had assumed that Microsoft was interested in 3 things. Yahoo!’s user base. Yahoo!’s existing technology. A cheap-to-operate acquisition.
Eliminating top-tier, expensive talent helps Yahoo! offer the third. I’m sure Microsoft believes they already have top-tier talent so why would they really want more if they don’t have to pay for it.
I wonder what percent of the Flickr user base would jump ship if it was acquired by Microsoft.
December 15th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Microsoft’s days as the evil empire went out around the same time “Ace of Bass” was a popular band and Netscape was “K-rad”
Update your hate, people. Wasting it on MS is plain embarrassing.