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.