I’m lost, but I’m hopeful.
By Justen Deal • Apr 9th, 2008 • Category: Yahoo!
Steve Ballmer is no Larry Ellison.
Microsoft has found its anemic carrot hasn’t done the trick to convince the folks at Yahoo! that assimilation is in their best interests. Now Microsoft is threatening to use a stick to whack Yahoo! into submission. Note to Microsoft: really, really bad idea.
I blogged almost a year ago about the missteps I believe Yahoo! has made. I wrote, two months ago, about how I figured a merger with Microsoft would be a complete disaster.
The way I see it, Microsoft only has two paths to “success” here: a.) distract Yahoo! from its core business for as long as possible, in the hopes of stealing some market share, or b.) ultimately secure a “merger” and consume what’s left of Yahoo! and take second place in an, essentially, scorched-earth strategy.
Either way would be a terrible outcome for Yahoo!, its shareholders, its people, and us helpless Yahoo! fans.
I think Yahoo!’s biggest shareholder agrees, despite the musings and instigating of some analysts.
If Yahoo! and Jerry Yang make it through this, we’ll all be the better for it. But surviving isn’t thriving, and Yahoo! really has a lot of ground to make up to get momentum back on its side. Doable? Absolutely. But it can’t be easy to focus on the future all the while Redmond’s Big Bad Wolf is huffing and puffing outside your straw door…
Justen Deal is a twenty-something business consultant based in Montréal, Québec; Charleston, West Virginia; and Los Angeles, California. He has been featured on the front page of the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.
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