Yahoo layoffs and increasing losses … Will Microsoft be able to acquire Yahoo by end of year 2009?
Internet giant Yahoo announced on Tuesday that it planned to lay off at least 10 percent of its workforce over the next few months as sales declined for the third consecutive quarter this year.
At least 1,500 employees will lose their jobs as part of Yahoo’s cost-saving plan, which Yahoo hoped would reduce costs by 400 million U.S. dollars a year.
RSS pioneer Dave Winer wonders aloud about Yahoo’s 1,000-person layoff this week, which has resulted in a number of key managers and technologists being axed from the company.
Winer blogged:
Why would Yahoo want to self-inflict more doubt about its future at this moment where doubt is its worst problem? …. When tech companies are acquired the people are the primary asset.
“You gotta wonder what Microsoft thinks about this. Maybe it’s the ultimate poison pill. Let’s get rid of the talent that Microsoft wants to acquire. Of course that’s a poison pill that would surely kill the patient.”
Dare Obasanjo, program manager with the Windows Live Platform group, itemizes some of the big-name Yahoo layoff casualties. Among those cut, Obasanjo blogged: Bradley Horowitz, who headed Yahoo’s advanced technology division ; Salim Ismail, the director of Yahoo’s incubation wing; and Randy Farmer, one of the main architect’s of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang’s “comeback plan.”
Well, with Yahoo’s cost cutting continuing and its heavy losses, do you think Microsoft will be able to take over Yahoo by the end of 2009?? Please leave your comments / views on this post for our regular readers.
What will really happen if Microsoft is ever able to buy Yahoo though, lets see …
Yahoo and MSN will finally give Google a run for its money when it comes to search. Google owns 57 percent of the search engine market, and Yahoo and Microsoft own together 34 percent, according to Search Engine Watch. Given the combined search knowhow of Microsoft and Yahoo we’d like to see both breathe some new life into search technology. Yahoo already has someinteresting tools such as Search Assistant and Shortcutsthat can make searching easier than Google. Check out Microsoft’s Live Search Clubt o see how Live Search is getting smarter. Together we’d like to see Microsoft and Yahoo make search results more relevant and smarter.
Microsoft and Yahoo combined would have a dynamite mobile offering without much heavy lifting. We’d like to see a marriage of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system and its mobile business focus merged with Yahoo.We love Yahoo’s mobile offeringsand its mobile search, maps, and email. Yahoo already has close ties to mobile carriers so it might not take long for the strengths of both mobile teams to trickle down to our cell phones.
If the mobile offerings from Microhoo (Microsoft + Yahoo) are too strong, they could strangle Google’s Android mobile operating system. And that would be a shame, since the open source effort promises users a more customizable phone than they’ve ever had. Given Microsoft’s industry clout and its cutthroat competitive spirit and Yahoo’s cozy relationship with carriers, Google’s Android platform could be in for a big fight.
And here is the best one - I have read this on one of the web channels, sorry dont remember the name now -
The deal could be the birth of Web 3.0 and not at all because of the companies involved, but rather, in spite of them. Obviously, a merger would mean significant job cuts. Who’s to say that the next Google isn’t the brainchild of one of those let go? Of course there’d be dead wood out there, but there will also be a lot of great creative minds that’ll get working on the next best thing. And the increased competition will give Microsoft something else to worry about besides Vista.
