Microsoft's Bid for Yahoo
So Microsoft has place a largish bid for Yahoo. (see link). So what does this mean for Microsoft? Well , for what it's worth, here is my 1 cents worth
Microsoft has, in my opinion, been falling in the minds of consumers for the last few years. On one side they have Apple, which produces a great product (although overpriced and locked to one vendor for your hardware, which is kinda sucky), and Google, which *gets* the internet. Now, just for a momnent, let's look at the consumer market that we have now in teh Western world. We live in extremely prosperous times. My generation's kids have not (in general) had to want for much. They have cable TV, they have the internet, cheap music, cheap Chinese manufacturing. They have grown up with a software monopoly of Microsoft.
So, as with all generations, they have grown up with a set of terchnology that is now percieved as "old hat", crusty, and created by and for the "old" people. Leading the charge of those companies that are doing this is Microsoft. So, if I was to put myself in the shoes of a young consumer/adult, Microsoft would seem so stuffy and boring.
Along comes a credible alternative that looks and acts differently. (Apple and Google). So people start looking towards these as agents of change, of "getting" their generation.
So, Microsoft, in an attempt to "get it", buys Yahoo. To me, that is a sign of a desperate company, one that has run out of ideas, one that feels that it is losing, and the only way it sees that it can stay relevant, is to buy a company that is at least a bit more relevant that it has managed to be in an effort to stay in the game.
These will indeed be interesting times for Microsoft and Yahoo employees.