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Cyber Battle
written by CLS Who would have ever thought there would come a day where two of the largest technology organizations would come face to face for one of the most talked about corporate takeover attempts. Yahoo! and Microsoft as many know are squaring off like prize fighters going for a championship belt. Neither contender wants to lose; neither contender plans on losing. According to the associated press, the Microsoft Corporation, based here in the Puget Sound area, announced on February 1, 2008 its desire to acquire Yahoo! so as to gain more of a market share in the online search world. They offered Yahoo! US $44.6 billion for ownership. Microsoft believes that the acquisition of Yahoo! will enhance the synergy between the technology power houses. This synergy will provide better solutions to the masses, solutions such as search, online advertising and web services. Frankly, that means we will get more spam email. One can only wonder about the motivation of the leadership of Microsoft. Could it be an attempt to take back market share in the computer world in general? Recently, Microsoft has been dominated by Apple in new technologies. Microsoft attempts to produce hardware like that of Apple and then suffers as Apple produces products that are better and more reliable. In this writers opinion, whether many are willing to admit it or not, Microsoft products are for the most part widely used on the West Coast (ie: Seattle and Silicon Valley) whereas most of the masses, both students and business professionals alike, utilize Apple based products. Yahoo! over the years has been utilizing Microsoft based code and server solutions, and needless to say has shown signs of decline. Moving to a Windows based server solution was the first fall of Yahoo! One begins to wonder if this was the plan of Microsoft years go. Hey, there is a thought, could the corporate takeover have started years ago? Another poignant topic under the same header are the reports that are coming in from News Corp. regarding Yahoo!’s potential partnership with the News Corp. company. News Corp. happens to have a vested interest in MySpace. Yahoo!’s attempts to partner with News Corp.would enfold the networking giant into the portfolio of Yahoo!, thus tainting the portfolio of Yahoo! Microsoft is betting on the continuous decline of Yahoo! through impulse partnerships. At this point it is all strategy. Little do people realize, but the Microsoft Corporation has a vested interested in FaceBook the direct rival of MySpace. If Microsoft was to acquire Yahoo! what would happen to the networking giants of FaceBook and MySpace? Could we say “Face Space”? This would be a true contradiction to the overall business development profile for Microsoft. News Corp. potentially is the only saving factor to Yahoo! in this hostile takeover attempt. Microsoft seems to be acting more like Ren and Stimpy in their attempts to acquire Yahoo! as it is beginning to appear as if they are working towards global domination without much thought about the next five seconds. In a five second world, Microsoft seems to be adding an underlining code that will slow down the technological progress. The potential acquisition will leave Microsoft vulnerable to even more hostile internet attacks. There is the potential as well that Microsoft will be leading its customers down an unlit path towards hackers and malicious computer geniuses. So, let round one end and round two begin! |