Breaking up?
I’ve borrowed the Ya-Who bit from AdViking… as mentioned over there (and a few other places!) the collapse of the Google/Yahoo! partnership bodes ill for the latter’s long term survival. I wonder if they’ll still be there in 5 years time.
Sandlines can’t help but wonder if Google entered the discussions in similar tone to how they entered the bidding for a wireless spectrum licence earlier this year. In Planet Google, Stross notes that a Google manager described his team’s anxiety that they might win, after placing the $4.71 billion bid: “We kept hitting the ‘refresh’ button on the browser to see if other companies had bid higher…”
Might Google have entered the deal feeling – “If it goes through, great, if it doesn’t: even better”. It certainly broke up the Microsoft / Yahoo! party and leaves Yahoo! needing a white knight. It will be interesting to see if Steve Ballmer still wants to play. If he does, it would speak to Microsoft’s despair in the battle against Google.
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