The other day I showed you how to remove news of the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal from your Feed Reader, so you can reduce the amount of “noise” … so many of the posts being written about this proposed takeover/merger are not worth reading. There are a few good reads on it, though, and Scoble’s recent writeup is one of those. (TechCrunch has had some interesting articles on this, too.) Plus, the stories are so numerous now that it’s hard to eliminate them all from your reader.
A lot people have been speculating that Google really has something to lose if and when this deal goes through. Scoble disagrees, noting that Google is beating both right now in the search game and will continue to do so, because Google is simply better at producing useful search results.
When this story first broke, Paul Stamatiou did a post on it, and I left a comment there that sums up how I feel about the deal:
Even if the deal goes through, so what?
[no innovation] x 2 = no innovation
I still stand by this comment. I think the deal would be a lot more interesting if Apple were buying Yahoo! At least then there would be a chance of innovation coming out of the combined companies.
So, why did I think this story is even worth mentioning? Because it addresses the topics of competition and innovation. I have held to the belief for years that competition is good because it breeds innovation, and innovation is good for consumers. As I have aged, though, I have come to see that competition does not always result in innovation. Innovation is not a result of how many players are in a market: it is a result of who the players are. Look at all the players in the mobile communications industry, as an example. Has all that competition bred innovation? I say no … the only innovative device I’ve seen in this field is the iPhone. All other devices are more alike than they are different, even when you consider the different operating systems.
The bottom line to me is that nothing of substance changes if Microsoft buys Yahoo! One giant sloth buys another giant sloth. The story to me is that Microsoft and Yahoo! would do well to learn how to empower the brilliant people they are blessed to have in their employment. Then we might actually be talking a deal that could have significant impact for consumers.
Enough editorializing from me. Your thoughts?
I have to preface with my usual disclaimer that I’m not a Microsoft hater, basher, or whatever. That having been said, I agree – it seems to me that somewhere along the line, MS has just gotten too big and slow. Like the US government, they’re bloated and ineffective much of the time. While I wouldn’t say that they don’t innovate, they certainly seem to spend much more time playing catch up.
Yes, I guess I must have come across as a Microsoft-hater, but I am really not. I just think it is a shame that they have so much talent that is buried within their bureaucracy, just as you point out is the situation with the US government.