When Microsoft offered nearly fifty billion dollars last year to acquire Yahoo I thought this was the stupidest thing Redmond had ever done, and in hindsight not accepting the offer was indeed the stupidest thing Yahoo had ever done. In a new development this week Yahoo has announced that it was ditching search and concentrating on its ad service in a 10-year agreement with Microsoft. Effectively Microsoft ended up getting almost as much control over Yahoo as they would have by owning it but for a fraction of the cost, while sidestepping antitrust regulations that would have resulted from an acquisition. In the end it goes to show that Yahoo really has been managed by the dumbest people in the IT business for the past couple of years…
Bits and rants from Tony Emond