Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Yahoo and Microsoft

The Washington Post is running an article entitled, "Congress Concerned About Microsoft, Yahoo Deal." The article states, "The companies have been talking for months about a partnership after a failed attempt by Microsoft to acquire Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo last year. In the deal, Microsoft's search engine, Bing, would be the exclusive search tool for Yahoo's sites. The companies would also combine their advertising sales forces. Together they would have about 30 percent of the search advertising market, compared with Google's grasp of 60 percent of online search advertisements."

The article concludes, "Google won't say whether it will protest the partnership to regulators, saying only in a statement: 'There has traditionally been a lot of competition online, and our experience is that competition brings about great things for users. We're interested to learn more about the deal.'"

1. What questions would you ask in order to become more informed about possible anti-trust violations associated with the potential Yahoo - Microsoft partnership? How would you find the answers to these questions?

2. What do you think that Yahoo and Microsoft would have to do to overtake Google in search? Is it possible for this partnership to overtake Google? Why or why not? Do you think that the partnership wants to overtake Google? Explain!

3. Ten years ago very few people had heard of Google. What type of web application do you think might have the same impact as Google has had, ten years from now.

4. Which of the following companies would you most like to own: Microsoft; Yahoo; or, Google? Why?
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2 comments:

  1. bettybJuly 29, 2009 at 12:33 PM

    Very interesting thoughts indeed. It's funny how used to Google everyone is. I use it all of the time, and I grew up when research was conducted in a library. I think my answer to number four is Microsoft because it seems to have the most staying power. I do love your questions. If I were still teaching, I'd have at least one day a week with this kind of format.

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  2. Andrew PassJuly 29, 2009 at 1:03 PM

    Hi Betty,

    Thanks!! Microsoft is definitely the oldest of these companies. But, I wonder if age and "staying power" are necessarily the same thing?

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