Google gets MSFT lunch and Yahoos breakfast

I can whole heartedly say today is a sad day for tech, it will be the day many remember as when Yahoo gave up its independence in order remain “independent.” This Yahoo!Google search deal almost sounds as though Google is the younger brother that pays the older brother not to try to make it big on his own and uses the older brothers friends to make more money. This deal stinks and does not I repeat sound like it will pass regulators once MSFT starts to get involved. This could be tied up in courts for ages and create nothing for share holders except discontent and angry and many people losing value (money) in the stock. Just view the amount of search Google would have :

To quote Kara Swisher:

“It is bad for advertisers, it is bad for consumers, it is bad for innovation, no matter how well-intentioned Google is.

And no matter how many flashy moves Google and Yahoo make, it is flat-out wrong for one player to so dominate such an important sector.”

Upon hearing this new I instantly thought of ColdPlay’s new song Viva La Vida and these lyrics in particular :

“I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sweep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy’s eye.”

These lyrics  convey the sentiment shared by many about Yahoo:, once a power house a place for innovation creation and a true passion for the delivering amazing products and user experience. Is now a company hanging on by a thread, a former shell of its self. There can be plenty of blame to be placed on everyone but the truth is the company is pretty much left to decay. This search deal with Google only shows how far behind Yahoo is, and how the mighty have fallen. This deal is horrible for Yahoo due to three main areas : Antitrust, Google viewing yahoo’s display ads, and if Google pulls the plug a year down the road then nothing.

There is a lot of risk placed in this deal which Yang may feel is warranted, but what was really accomplished? You took away a great bid for the fear of being consumed, to becoming totally dependent on another enemy that can leave you for dead after gutting you. It is a sad day in the valley as a innovative and proud company has just fallen to its knees. Thoughts? Comments? tears of sadness?

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Community strength

First off and foremost HAPPY NEW YEAR Hope everyone is well rested, and ready to tackle on new year with lots of passion and engery in what ever area they are focusing on. I must say, I have no updated the blog as much as I would like to and that will change. The people reading this blog please post your responses to articles and your view points. I would like to know what you guys are thinking, so the first article or topic I wanted to cover is biased on MSFT vs Google, let me know what you guys think.

The aspect of tackling a giant is often a daunting task. How do you set your self apart in an era where business is done with such intensity,vigor, and passion? Often times great products, with great minds driving them can result in success. But how do you sustain that success repeatedly, and gain momentum, that lies is leveraging people outside of your company. To use resources which can be harvested without limiting the scope of the people involved.
One case which has shed some light on competing with giants is Google vs. Microsoft. Imagine a company with revenues of ~60 Billion being taken on by a company with ~13 Billion per a year. How do you change the way the field is played to make it your advantage ? As Microsoft can easily out spend, and out match your talent due to their shear numbers, loyalty of users due to lack of choices in productivity. This is the key area LACK OF CHOICES. This is wear Google saw the hole, the window of opportunity to attack.
Google set up its own IT structure without relying on MSFT products: Top to bottom Google runs their business on open source GNU/Linux. Free. No licensing costs. Add MySQL as the database — even better. Google can expand their business using commodity Intel/AMD hardware and keep software costs very low, without adding revenues to Microsoft’s bottom line.
This results in injecting your company with products which are molded to you, and not helping the competition. The next aspect comes from leveraging the community: If software developers aren’t developing on open source software, then they are likely writing software on Microsoft’s technology. Google’s fostering the creation of more open source developers who can either work on Google projects or go out in the world and help the propagation of open source in other companies
The prefect example of this is launching a Google Mobile platform which is open sources for phones. This is attacking MSFT on all fronts, and using their own products to do so. By helping and donating to the open source community ( 66 million in revenue to Mozilla in 2006). The creation of products with open source results in harvesting talent outside of your company, due to the attraction of talent which wants to mold and implement software in their own environment. Thus resulting in MSFT to hire and create these implementations of custom molds ( resulting in more expensive operations vs Google which relies on this heavly on open source)

Thus taking down a giant does not mean attacking them from a front or back or both, but rather from the inside. Using their platforms and making the users using their platforms driven to use the open source products ( google office products). Resulting in potential user switching and more bottom line revenue for google done with minimum money investment

Aditya Vempaty