In a recent post David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer suggested that the possible purchase of Yahoo by Microsoft may stifle the openness and innovation of the Internet.
He believes the openness of the Internet is what made both Yahoo and Google possible. Now with the proposed purchase he is fearful because of Microsoft’s track record when it comes to domination of the markets it influences.
Drummond goes on to suggests if the purchase goes through they may use the same practices over the most heavily traveled site on the Internet.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/yahoo-and-future-of-internet.html
Why does everyone for some reason think this will have negative effects on Google?
Microsoft is the software giant.
Yahoo is the internet traffic giant.
Google is the search giant.
Each of the three is #1 in it’s own core competency but do have produce much in the each other’s fields. Sure Google has a document suite but I am not going to stop using Word, Excel and Powerpoint anytime soon. So do Google Docs take away from Microsoft’s sale of Office… I doubt it.
So why is it that everyone believes that some how the combination of Microsoft (software) and Yahoo (Internet traffic) some how adds up to creating a search giant?
Don’t get me wrong here, if this deal goes through it will be a great profit center for Microsoft and help boot Yahoo’s core business. Just don’t think for a second that this will change Google’s direction… taking 2 companies that neither are very good at search and combining them does not make them better than Google.