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Microsoft-Yahoo: Uhm, What About the Desktop Possibilities?
With the hundreds of posts about the Microsoft bid to acquire Yahoo (Nasdaq: MSFT/YHOO) yesterday, one thing hit me... where's the discussion about the desktop? There are huge upsides to this deal for Microsoft on the desktop even though they didn't mention it once on the conference call yesterday.
We know how much people apparently hate Vista but could a YahooVista make consumers happy?
- Think about a Windows Media Player tied into Yahoo Music (formerly Launch).
- What about Flickr-style photo browsing on the desktop?
- Delicious built into Internet Explorer?
- Yahoo Mail integration into Outlook?
- What about Yahoo Mail replacing Outlook for consumers?
On the small business side, what if Yahoo store and/or Web hosting is built into Vista?
We've touched on Yahoo's desktop widgets and how they can be installed on Vista now. But what if the widget engine is installed by default? The Yahoo widgets are sexy from what I've seen so far.
Could a proper Yahoo tie into Windows help bring back some Apple fans?
I am not sure why Microsoft hasn't spoken about the desktop yet. Is it because they want to look at it as a bonus, or are there legal/financial issues? Either way there is huge potential upside for the consumer desktop if the acquisition goes through.
Interesting ideas Allen. I think a proper Yahoo/Vista tie-in might bring back some Apple fans, but only if the stability of Vista was significantly improved.
"mshorizon" is the future of the "desktop", perhaps yhoo purchase will assist with that?
...wouldn't it be cheaper to spend a fraction of the $45b on actually improving/replacing Vista?
This possible move by Microsoft is another open look at just how utterly clueless this company is.
Look at what happened to AOL-Netscape. Two brand names that couldn't co-exist on the web. If you plan on competing, you attack directly under a single name. You improve what's broken. You don't divest yourself by buying a company doing the same things you're doing unless it's to kill it off.
It wasn't long ago that Yahoo spent millions re-working their backend so that it used more open source development tools, worked on making sure that alternate browser support was handled better and moved away from proprietary and closed systems at the heart of the Microsoft empire.
Microsoft has still not learned a single lesson about what works on the internet. All you need to look at is the BBC Video fiasco that limited choice for the user and see that MS will continue to try and move users into closed and poprietary sysems as they fight a losing battle against Google, Apple, Linux...
Microsoft attemping to buyout Yahoo does very little for them and opens up even more headaches as they try and consolidate vastly different systems. They can barely support their current models - there is NO way in hell they'll be able to support two similar models. In the end, it'll be many fully functioning web-apps at Yahoo that will be closed completely, thus eliminating a major player from the field. Initially, Google will remain uneffected by this move.
As time progresses and Microsoft turns the Yahoo name and services into mush (there is no other way to look at this)... Google will continue to grow, as will Linux and Apple - among their chief competitors in different fields.
I hope MS makes the move because by killing Yahoo, they open the door to further competition from 3rd parties looking for alternatives to Google/Microsoft on the web and no longer having the 3rd option in Yahoo.
AOL stands to gain tremendously from this if they are able to get their heads out of their arse long enough to realize that the internet needs to be open to all major browsers (Firefox, Opera and Safari) and begin focusing on cross-platform applications with open data formats. Like MS, AOL is a creature of habit and will lose the biggest opportunity they will have ever had.