What our Microsoft deal means to you

Posted July 29th, 2009 at 4:55 am by Carol Bartz, CEO

 85 Comments / Filed in: Trends & News

It’s inhumanly early in California, but it’s already a great day at Yahoo!. We’ve just signed a major search deal with Microsoft. Under the terms, Microsoft will become the search engine behind Yahoo! and we will become the worldwide exclusive relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.

While you’ll read a lot about why this is good for our business and for advertisers, I want to talk about what’s in it for you -– the Yahoo! fan.

Here’s the rundown:

• Better search: You’ll still find search boxes all across Yahoo!, but this deal will make the difference between a great Yahoo! search experience and an awesome one. Some of the biggest brains in the business work on Yahoo! Search, and they will continue to innovate to create a better search experience on Yahoo!. As a result of the deal, Microsoft, which has great technologists and deep pockets,will have the scale to bring users faster, more useful and more personally relevant search.
• Better everything else: With Microsoft powering Yahoo! Search, we’ll be able to focus on the things we do best -– being the center of people’s lives online with properties like our homepage, mail, finance, news, sports, entertainment, mobile, etc. Sure, we’re the world’s largest online media company and your loyalty has made that possible. But we’re not satisfied – we still want you to say “wow” a lot more often. And that’s what makes this deal especially exciting.
• Better competition: Competition equals innovation. But with one player dominating 70% of search, that field has been pretty lopsided. This transaction will create a healthy competitor that’ll keep everyone on their toes.

In short, everything’s just going to get a whole lot better for you.

And one final note — what this agreement does not cover is any of Yahoo!’s other properties or products. In those areas, Microsoft can expect a fierce competitor.

We’ve set up a special site, www.choicevalueinnovation.com, that answers your questions.

Carol Bartz
CEO

Tagged: microsoft, news, yahoo! search

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85 Comments Add your own

Kelvin | July 29th, 2009 at 5:19 am

Hi Carol,

Hope this see this deal benefit both consumers and Yahoo!.

Best of luck.

OoTheNigerian | July 29th, 2009 at 5:28 am

Hi Carol,

Congrats on the deal, it seems you are trying to focus Yahoo! on where it already has competitive advantage like Y! finance.

Best of luck!

Oo

gag | July 29th, 2009 at 5:29 am

wow

well its true Singularity is Inevitable

lock n load – rock n roll

Andrew H | July 29th, 2009 at 6:08 am

This is a very concerning move by Yahoo. Yahoo’s proprietary Search technology is incredibly underrated. I believe it is better than Google’s except in the area of science and technology searches. Even in science and technology searches, however, Yahoo Search is very good.

Yahoo has made this mistake before. The last time, Yahoo picked a small, non-threatening company to power all of Yahoo’s searches. You discarded your own search engine technology. You threw it in the trash. Soon that small company grew into the giant behemoth known as Google. Google betrayed Yahoo, forcing Yahoo to redevelop its own search engine from scratch to the cost of billions of dollars. That foolhardiness almost killed Yahoo off. That fundamental mistake by Yahoo was incredibly costly to shareholder value.

You need to learn from Yahoo’s own history. Let’s say Bing eventually takes a 40% market share in search. Why would anyone come to Yahoo to search, when they could just go to bing.com? They will go to the original source, and over time they will spend less time at Yahoo’s derivative pages. Microsoft is bound to betray Yahoo one day, just like Google did in the same scenario a few years ago. Microsoft would be crazy not to treat Yahoo as the weakling in this partnership from the beginning.

Quit being the nice guys, and start being the winners.

Yahoo needs to keep its own proprietary search engine alive. Give it one real URL like search.yahoo.com or even go off-domain like “something-search.com.” Go ahead and make all the other search links on Yahoo link to Bing—for now. Eventually Microsoft will turn on Yahoo. When that happens, you must have Yahoo Search ready to take over on the spot and become your site’s main search engine again. You need to keep developing Yahoo’s own search engine, keep indexing the web, and keep it current. Sure you can cut costs, but it would be wisest to not cut them to the bone.

Keep Yahoo Search alive! Don’t become like Microsoft’s many other partners—stabbed in the back. Is Yahoo’s management even aware of what Microsoft has done over the years? Inhabiting the executive suite does not mean that you automatically make good decisions. Yahoo’s former managers learned that the hard way when they made the same mistake in “partnering” with Google several years ago.

Or, if you really are set on doing this foolishly, at least sell Yahoo Search to a small company like Cuil and that way the technology will be kept alive somewhere. Please make a public announcement of this so those of us who know the true greatness of Yahoo Search can switch over to wherever it goes.

The developers of the Yahoo Search engine have done an amazing job that does not get recognized by enough people around the Internet. To you guys and gals, I just want to say thank you for an amazing five years or so. It’s mind-blowing how good Yahoo Search has become in that time. I use Yahoo Search all the time because it is the most effective search engine. I recommend it to everyone. People are just currently stuck on Google. People can be slow and thick. As we know from history–things eventually change. Have patience.

In summary, I recommend that Yahoo keep its own Yahoo Search technology alive at search.yahoo.com. Your own homegrown technology is better at delivering relevant results than Google or Bing right now. Oftentimes in the tech industry, the best product does not get the biggest market share–at least not right away. This is one of those times.

There will be another day. When that opening arrives, be ready to take advantage of it. Keep Yahoo Search alive. Yahoo can be in a great position to take significant market share in the future. Be ready.

If that is your plan, and for now you are just using Microsoft to make more money–then great. Just keep your own technology alive and well and growing.

Good luck to Yahoo. You have been at the heart of the web from day one. For the sake of the Internet, I hope that continues.

Agha Asif Raza | July 29th, 2009 at 6:16 am

Finally we can expect some real competition. Good Luck Yahoo-Microsoft!

Leo | July 29th, 2009 at 6:31 am

A very sad day for Yahoo. Iam changing my search engine to Google :)

alex_mayorga | July 29th, 2009 at 6:40 am

What if I liked the “great Yahoo! search experience” and dislike the Microsoft’s “awesome one”?
Would you keep the current Y! search engine running on Yang’s basement or something?
It’s all on Hadoop if I’m not mistaken so why not be bold and make it GPL or some other free license and let the community provide some fierce competition too. Just look what that did on the browsers market.
I for one will miss Y! search =(

Michael | July 29th, 2009 at 7:01 am

Awesome job – done right this will be a big win for both companies

GuillaumeB | July 29th, 2009 at 7:22 am

Thanks for the message. Put this way it does make more sense :) Congrats on the deal and keep up the good work Oh and BTW… don’t give up on Search Monkey and Yahoo! Glue!!

Shankar | July 29th, 2009 at 7:40 am

Can you talk about ‘panama’ and what’s the impact on Yahoo’s search team ?

Miramon | July 29th, 2009 at 7:43 am

Do you honestly believe that Bing’s search results are superior to Yahoo’s? I make no judgment either way myself, just curious if that belief is held at Yahoo.

Rishabh Singla | July 29th, 2009 at 7:43 am

As I flip through the pages of ‘The Search’, looking at the the past of search, it’s even more exciting to see history of the future being written right in front of me!

In retrospect, it’s interesting to see how Yahoo has come a full circle with search. From outsourcing (to Google and Inktomi), to running internal search, to outsourcing again (to Microsoft).

Dave | July 29th, 2009 at 8:15 am

I guess I’ve been around long enough to have been under the impression that Yahoo! was a search engine.
I hadn’t realized that it had transitioned into a ‘portal’, like AOL.
I’ll be sure to try and remember this when I’m in need of a search engine to try and find something.

Thanks for enlightening me.

Karthik | July 29th, 2009 at 8:19 am

Does this mean that, Bing will be used in the background for Yahoo! search results?

Brian | July 29th, 2009 at 8:23 am

Hi Carol, I think you’re doing a great job running Yahoo!. As a longtime YSM advertiser, I hope this doesn’t mean that I won’t be able to run ads on your site anymore, because I preferred your system over Google’s a lot. Your sites were always the best converting. I hope this doesn’t mean I have to go to Microsoft’s AdCenter, because in my opinion their PPC advertising platform is inferior to YSM. If this deal means that YSM won’t be running anymore or it won’t have as much reach or quality conversions, I’ll have to probably just switch back to Google as much as it pains me.

Marky | July 29th, 2009 at 8:24 am

Very disappointing. I have tried Bing (live search) and found the results not as good as those from Yahoo! search.

Obviously driven by the need to reward shareholders than create a true competitor to Google.

Jim Gaudet | July 29th, 2009 at 8:25 am

What about the Yahoo Directory? Does this have any effect on that?

Alberto | July 29th, 2009 at 8:26 am

Good news
Hope this deal will boost the search engine market dynamics!

Joe R. Gulizia | July 29th, 2009 at 8:31 am

Disappointed at the deal. Not a fan of Micro$oft!

zato | July 29th, 2009 at 8:39 am

This deal will no doubt enrich Yahoo, but at what cost for the internet down the road. Giving more power over the internet to thoroughly evil companies like Microsoft and partners Fox and other big media is a recipe for an internet turned into manipulative network-TV.

A Reis Designs | July 29th, 2009 at 9:28 am

Hi Carol,

Thanks for the post. I am wondering when the new changes will be rolling out, and Yahoo Search is officially turned over to the Bing search engine technology?

Thanks,

Amy

Pooja | July 29th, 2009 at 10:15 am

I can only hope that this will improve Yahoo but I really don’t know. Personally, I don’t think Yahoo should have partnered with Microsoft. Yahoo is great on its own and search is something they do best, especially since there are now so many Search Quality Judges improving the quality (something in which Google has fallen down on the job). I wonder what this means for them in terms of a job..? I’d be interested to hear the status on that. If it put so many people out of a job then I don’t think this move was the best idea.

Anyways, like I said, I can only hope that this will improve the search engine. I look forward to hearing more in the coming days.

*Pooja*

Andy Frazer | July 29th, 2009 at 10:20 am

I’m afraid this post didn’t clarify anything for me.

I’m still wondering, “Who’s search engine are you using? Yahoo’s or MicroSoft’s?”

Hasanat Kazmi | July 29th, 2009 at 10:49 am

From where I am looking at this all: I can see Google getting rid of the other best search engine after it. Yahoo is going to put years of development of Hadoop in dustbin for what …. Bing, just changing names don’t make things better.
I feel pity for Microsoft, just having more web presence wont buy them more users …. They bought your users and will pay you for putting switch off your search engine. You might be better off in short-run but eventually, if Bing fails (which most probably it will), your user base will decline. And even if it doesn’t still your user base will decline: if someone has to use Bing, then why would they come to your site, they can directly go to Bing. I wonder how will you integrate into your system.

I can see just one clear winner: Google

Good luck with your ambitions, just don’t be evil.

Mark | July 29th, 2009 at 11:04 am

Good news in my opinion, relying too much on one search engine is bit risky for any online business. This will lead to better search experience eventually and more choice for users.

The Big K | July 29th, 2009 at 11:24 am

Thanks for the post. I look forward to better search results as well as global launch of a real adsense competitor! :)

Biz SE | July 29th, 2009 at 11:51 am

Well, finally we could see some real rubs with the G .
Keep it up, especially in the execution, it is really complicated on the implementation part !
Don’t loss out fellows, we know you could do it…and do it right ! We want to see something different !

Luke Hubbard | July 29th, 2009 at 12:02 pm

How will this change the user experience? Will consumers get the exact same organic and/or paid results on both Yahoo and Bing?

Luke

ashi | July 29th, 2009 at 12:06 pm

Simply means that you lost faith in your search capability.
Kudos to Bing for their aggression!

long live Y!

Luke Hubbard | July 29th, 2009 at 12:11 pm

This partnership is a brilliant decision on behalf of both Yahoo and Microsoft.

Gatt | July 29th, 2009 at 12:12 pm

Great to see Yahoo focusing on core competency and going beck to being the web destination.

CGO | July 29th, 2009 at 12:13 pm

Thanks Carol for posting this message. I like the partnership model which turns out to be a win win for both MS and Yahoo.

I am kind of hoping that you will take time out to do more blogging for avid followers like me.

All the very best to the future of MS and Yahoo search.

Yosi Zituni | July 29th, 2009 at 12:31 pm

It’s great that everyone, including Advertisers, will get a competitive alternative !

Roofing Guy 9000 | July 29th, 2009 at 12:33 pm

Will Bing also be handling the paid ads, or will that be done as it is now by Yahoo! ?

Deepak | July 29th, 2009 at 12:47 pm

Hello Carol,

Excellent news! Finally we will see some real competition! I am looking at the day when intuitive searching is made faster and easier. All the best!

Gods TURN | July 29th, 2009 at 1:05 pm

Ms. Bartz, YOU just $OLD your soul to ‘the devil’, accepting this “Merger”…err, I mean PARTNERSHIP!! Your “brainwashed” comments and “ALL of Yahoo’s ‘NEW’ policies POSTED”, sound like NON other than — Da da dum…bill gates! Especially, the ‘innovation’ part your going to do with Micro$oft, as Ballmer (gates’ mouth piece) pointed out, like you did too!!! You should of NEVER have done this; believing bill’s “empty promises” about how great and how much Micro$oft is going to HELP you!!! “He’s in it for himself…” Do you really think taking their (bill’s) money was a GOOD choice???

Today, ‘they’ just HELPED you [(who replaced Jerry Yang, the Yahoo co-founder, (a GOOD man!!) and the 'ORIGINAL Yahoo board' that was "FULLY ?" and "Secretly" replaced by -- the World's 'EVILIEST', 'ALWAYS LYING', 'Secret Worker in the DARK', (tip of the ICEBERG, Folks!!!) Business man, "slick willie" gates...)] to get ‘READY’ to ANSWER to God!!!!

MOST of us “KNOW” Carl Icahn was a “plant” by bill gates, to further “INTIMIDATE” and “HARRASS” ‘the old Yahoo members’ that were still left…

ATTENTION EVERYONE!! — “DO NOT” use Yahoo anymore, Nor “BING” EVER-AGAIN…because they are a (Hornet) “STING”!!! …Especially, if ‘YOU’ (The PEOPLE) “DON’T” want to be “FURTHER-CONTROLLED”, by “THE WORLD DOMINATOR and CONTROLLER”, bill gates!!! That’s an IMMINENT WARNING…BELIEVE me!! bill gates has been doing this “DRAMA” for a LONG TIME and PLANNED it…A LONG TIME, while “PROMISING” he wasn’t going to (Forcefully) go after Yahoo again (a dozen times before he did anyway, to catch the ORIGINAL Yahoo members, “off-guard”, so he could do what he did today!!!) The People “ARE-NOT”…STUPID!! Take this off and you will ‘REALLY’ have to ANSWER to God!! “JESUS is LORD!!!!!!!” (: JESUS, I “TRUST” in You! (: AMEN! (:

sue decker | July 29th, 2009 at 1:38 pm

carol- nice job raising the bar ahead of this deal. you wanted more “wows” and you got it. stock down 12% today. wow

Christopher Kata | July 29th, 2009 at 3:26 pm

Hi Carol –
I’m thrilled with this decision. In the last few years MS and Yahoo! have had a lot of catching up to do and I felt it was never moving fast enough. With this deal and MS launch of Bing I now feel confident the search space has some good strong competition which will really drive innovation!

Congrats!

Cheers,
Christopher Kata, CTO
Spark Internet Marketing Corporation

AMANSLIFE | July 29th, 2009 at 3:47 pm

I LIKE THIS DEAL A LOT AND THIS WILL BENEFIT US ALL! http://askthecollegekid.blogspot.com/

onnlist | July 29th, 2009 at 3:51 pm

This deal will definitely create healthy competition and hopefully this will lead to more innovation in search.

Good Luck Yahoo,

OnnList Team

Manoj Mehta | July 29th, 2009 at 4:39 pm

Hi Carol,

Thanks for the post on the Yahoo-Microsoft announcement. As a shareholder, one aspect of this merger isn’t sitting well with me – future revenue growth.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that this deal gives Bing the impetus it needs and 5 years from today, its market share stands at 40% (from <10% today). Knowing Microsoft, it is sure to re-negotiate its giving away 88% of revenue generated from clicks originating from Yahoo! properties, thereby resulting in reduced Yahoo! revenues.

Over the next few years, is the plan to focus on other ventures that will add to Yahoo!’s bottom-line? With the balance sheet in the state it is in currently, and with Search being the cash cow, unless Yahoo! strikes gold in a new venture, I don’t see how revenue projections can be met. Maybe I am missing something here.

Thanks,
Manoj

Rob Snell | July 29th, 2009 at 4:42 pm

Congratulations! Our company is both a Yahoo customer AND advertiser so I look forward to what this means for small business folks like us. Competition drives innovation, and I anticipate more of both.

Ray's Hotel Guide | July 29th, 2009 at 4:50 pm

Congratulations to yahoo

Norma Fares | July 29th, 2009 at 6:56 pm

Yahoo!inc’s innovations i.e. Flickr, Green Yahoo!… I, a fan and friend of Yahoo! made me thankfully say “WAW” many times. If Yahoo! with its new 10-years-agreement with Microsoft would make us say WAW even often, I can say we are undoubtdelly ready for it. Shoot Yahoo!…Fly Yahoo!

God’s Blessings from Lebanon

Norma Fares

Gonzalo Rosado | July 29th, 2009 at 6:59 pm

I just left Yahoo! on Friday and I am very sad with this piece of news. Yahoo! powered by Google, Yahoo! powered by Bing. We know what comes next. I can ´t count the millions of resources that have been employed in creating a decent Search experience, gone to waste.

Please approve this comment.

-gonz

Jacquie | July 29th, 2009 at 7:33 pm

Sounds like a lot of cyber fun. Be sure to advertise my website!

Rajendra Vottery | July 29th, 2009 at 8:24 pm

Hi!

Congratulations!

I hope the recent deal with MS will be good for us all, including Google! I also hope,sincerely,that the users-often at the receiving end of it all- will get to eat a slice of the celebration-cake from both camps,Yahoo! and Microsoft, sooner than later.

With best wishes,

Rajendra

ray | July 29th, 2009 at 10:31 pm

This deal sounding so great. The acquisition of Microsoft with Yahoo could be a positive move for several reasons. First of all Microsoft hopes to gain a foothold in the online advertising business and this merge would enable that. Also this move would “allow the two companies to pool their resources in order to take on a common enemy — Google (Charts, Fortune 500) — as opposed to wasting money by competing against each other” (La Monica). Microsoft needs a strong merge in order to improve their revenue and me a strong competitor with online advertisers.

There are several other pros associated in competing with Google jointly.

For this and more visit http://en.oboulo.com/microsoft-s-pursuit-of-yahoo-55595.html

former yahoo | July 29th, 2009 at 11:02 pm

You’ve killed yahoo. that’s it.

Praveen | July 30th, 2009 at 12:04 am

Regarding the point on “Better competition” , you could still compete and innovate with out killing your in house search or getting sold out to Microsoft. This doesn’t really help as Google still innovates on search even with a “lopsided competition” , in fact it is Microsoft that kills innovation when the competition gets lopsided aka Netscape IE6 saga whereby they stagnated the Entire Web for 8 years with the amazing IE6.

Now My question to you Mam is this : If Yahoo/Microsoft where to win the Search competition by driving Google out of the search business ['yes , in your dreams'] , Will you stagnate the search or keep innovating even though it is lopsided?

I am Bleeding Purple.

JOHN | July 30th, 2009 at 12:25 am

yeah i hope to see it too

n97i | July 30th, 2009 at 12:49 am

It’s breaking news. It’ll definitely good for microsoft’s bing search. It’s not good for yahoo search people.

Dan | July 30th, 2009 at 1:46 am

Google has become so large lately, that I’m very happy to see Yahoo/MSN rising up to be a worthy challenger. As a search marketer, I only hope this will lead to better PPC options as well. Between Yahoo Search Marketing, and MSN AdCenter, I prefer Yahoo, so I’m curious how this will effect everything.

Great job on bringing this through.

–Dan

lynn | July 30th, 2009 at 3:44 am

expecting the best

Upal Chakraborty | July 30th, 2009 at 4:17 am

Its great that even some core google community is discussing this deal ( Ref : http://googlewavecommunity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=26 ). Yahoo has a long list of followers already and the recent Bing is also doing good. I used to check all the three (GYB) bcoz different result set. Bing’s result set was more or less similar to Google whereas Yahoo offers some different and more authoritative source of information. Now the fear is I’ll lose one set !!! But if the Big G monopoly is challenged I’ll be happy. In this respect I’d like to mention that if Yahoo+Bing try to be our (small developers) friend then they’ll do good in long term. Product like small biz website pack from a giant like Yahoo is not at all welcome. Google is more of a friend here with Google Apps n all. At the end of a day its not really how good result set you offer (of course not a failure like Cuil), its how friendly U r to small developers like us.

A Fact : Small developers do not talk much about Bing though it offers good result. Do U know why ? Its bcoz Microsoft is a money machine and does not offer anything for free… even an Adsense competitor !!!

nesuhi | July 30th, 2009 at 7:06 am

Dear Ms Carol,
I’m confident this deal will make a big difference, same big difference you made when you were at the helm of Autodesk. All the best!

Stanley | July 30th, 2009 at 7:41 am

that is a great news for us, this deal been word though for quite a long time, finally! today they make the deal up!

Gus S. | July 30th, 2009 at 8:12 am

I can see the value in this deal for Yahoo, but I’m having trouble seeing what’s in it for Microsoft.

Gus
Franchise Solutions

Adi | July 30th, 2009 at 8:24 am

this would be kind of depressing for yahoo search engineers i feel ..:-/

ronald weintraub | July 30th, 2009 at 8:30 am

hi yahoo is not going no where ok the home page is still yahoo brand name search stil, be yahoo mail messenger chat is not change to bing media reports yesterday saying yahoo is change to bing home page not true ok there be no bing name on yahoo home page or bing name . there is parnership only . not a merge ok miro soft is help yahoo make tech better on there search tech only . and makes your windows update too ok is a great deal for yahoo . good deal for yahoo . was aging yahoo not merge with mico soft yahoo is good company ok not change to google ok . is make yahoo better company . as carol told you ok. steve joining yahoo help it out . carol and steve working side by side make sure yahoo wont go out busness and make better a parnership .

Joe | July 30th, 2009 at 9:03 am

Damn I’m a few days late on this one!

It seemed like it was only a matter of time before MS and Yahoo got together in some way or form. I’m still surprised that Yahoo declined the MS offer to buy them out but maybe this is a result of those talks.

I wonder what google make of this and if they’re quaking in their boots? probably not.

Pooja | July 30th, 2009 at 10:14 am

I’d like to second the opinions of others in this blog who point out that the stock went down 12% yesterday after the announcement (way to go, Carol) and that this just wastes all the hard work done by myself (a former Yahoo) and countless others to improve the search engine over the years. We’ve even seen statistics that show that the quality of the search engine has improved and thereby brought in more users. I don’t know why you want to totally throw all that out the window and hand over a search engine which has 19% of the market share to one that only has 8% of the market share. Now, I’m not a business person or anything, but that just doesn’t make any sense to me. It looks more like suicide than anything else.

Like I said in my previous post, I can only hope that the worst will not happen to Yahoo as a result of this move but it really makes me wonder at this point. Not only has the stock gone down but if you’re handing over the search engine completely to MS, then you’re putting thousands of people in the search dept out of a job. How is that good for Yahoo?? Ohhh, of course, money makes the world go ’round right? =P Pardon me while I puke…

And you mention that you will focus on “what Yahoo does best”… I’m sorry, I thought that Yahoo was a SEARCH ENGINE. Isn’t THAT what you do best?? I know that you’ve branched out and have many other departments now but Yahoo remains known as a search engine and that’s how it started out. So much money and manpower has been spent to improve that search engine over the years and we (I say this as a former Yahoo) have succeeded in doing that. Now you’re just throwing all that away and acting like Yahoo has more important things to worry about. Wtf is that…

I could talk about the ramifications of this all day but I think I’ve said enough. This is all on your head now, Carol… all these comments and the stock speak for themselves. This was not the right move at all.

Jack | July 30th, 2009 at 10:47 am

I have long used Yahoo as my default search engine but I suppose it will be time to switch search engines at long last. I really don’t care for either Bing nor Google, I wonder how well Ask.com will suit my need. Guess it’s time to try it out. Good luck with your partnership.

Brian Ussery | July 30th, 2009 at 12:30 pm

What impact will this have on Yahoo China?

An Alibaba spokesman is quoted as saying that Yahoo China is “managed independently of whatever Yahoo U.S. chooses to do.”

Ling | July 30th, 2009 at 12:33 pm

This is a sad day for Yahoo! .

We have another company where the CEO is brought in to bring the stock back up at all cost. Few years, or even months down the road, we get some better stock prices, and then what? So that investor can sell off their stocks and run as fast as they can. There is no future for Yahoo. The downhill road has just begun.

A company that does no innovate will eventually have to be buried. No, Microsoft does not innovate. It just take a little longer for them to disintegrate, but eventually they will.

Vikram | July 30th, 2009 at 12:38 pm

If you want to provide your users an awesome search experience, there is an obvious solution – Google. If you do not trust this/are not willing to come with terms to reality, try making the searchbox on your homepage configurable, and see how many of your users set it to Google.

THECHOSENONE | July 30th, 2009 at 3:02 pm

I’m Really SORRY you signed ‘the deal’ in secret and early before the “anti-trust” group could analyze this! Micro$oft is an EVIL company!! Bill gates is even worse, infact M$=bill gates+, did you “know” that he is STILL the head of micro$oft in ’secret’??? shhh…and I “seen” him, “HONEST to God”, comment how happy “he is” about this “STUPID” deal going through about a dozen times with different names!!! bill gates “sales pitches” how great his stuff is and how GREAT he is too; on “ALL kinds of Blogs” again under MANY different aliases!!!!!

People, “LEARN his EVIL VOICE” and RESEARCH what a Madman we have in the World alikened to the antichrist!!!!!! He “CAN’T EVER” be trusted…if you only “KNEW” what a CROOK and “RUTHLESS MONOPOLIST” he is and how MANY Innocent people he “MERCILESSLY” put away by bribing judges and governments around “GOD’S WORLD!!!!”, because they didn’t follow “his PETTY laws”!!!!

On the other hand, “he BREAKS ‘SERIOUS LAWS’ ALL THE TIME” and has been for years as he puts these “INNOCENT” people away, because he has “OUR money” we gave him for years, to do it… He’s become way too POWERFUL in an Evil sense!!!!! “God and ‘HIS’ People” are fed up with gates’ Confusion and Fear tactics too…and EVIL World DOMINATION!!!!!!!

Any Microsoft/gates fan or NOT — should read how he weasled his way out of the “Microsoft Anti-Trust Settlement”…http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/lit/microsoft/

Lastly, bill gates ONLY wanted the SEARCH part of Yahoo for “his own debase reasons” which will be “EXECUTED in the DARK”!!!! He will now have “TOTAL CONTROL” with the LARGER (than bing which I heard is a “STING”!!) Search Engine Database, he NOW “OWNS” for FREE, to do ALL the EVIL he wants to…against US ALL!!! …Its like looking into the pit of Hell “seeing” all the things he does…”moving at the speed of business” as he sadisticly calls it!!!!!!! God “HELP US” ALL…

Dmitri | July 30th, 2009 at 3:12 pm

Great move Yahoo! I am buying more Google shares.

TSlice | July 30th, 2009 at 6:18 pm

This deal better mean better searching on Yahoo.

Rahman Mehraby | July 31st, 2009 at 1:03 am

It’s good news for the people who search online and need better results as competition among search giants end up in better results for us.

But, it seems that Yahoo is taking right steps toward more focus on what it needs to be known for as number one. It’s not easy to be number one for everything. Yahoo can leave search to Microsoft and become the social portal that it likes to be.

M$freeZone | July 31st, 2009 at 3:01 am

After achieving my M$oft free status, I am unlikely to have any dealings with a tie-up between Micro$oft and Yahoo! Particularly so since Yahoo Mail is now starting to cause me ongoing problems, so that I am increasingly using Gmail as my preferred free service. (Gave up on Hotmail years ago).

After reading the comments here from people far more knowledgeable than myself, it would seem that it’s mostly unfounded optimism that is being clutched at by the approvers of this alliance.

wangjel | July 31st, 2009 at 11:53 am

we have seen everywhere the news, most of it negative……….i guess it is a good idea to create on “front Yahoo.com some little friendly spot where “Yahoo/you express your point of view about the steps you take because not so many Yahoo user get here on your blog (most of them don’t even know you exist), and in that negative reflection of your concurrence the truth can disappear easily and your company become a “Corp.” only, and “userlittlepeople” don’t like Corp’s official point of views…too distant/untouchable/too big……….and in relation with Microsoft can be helpful some human touch.

Brian | July 31st, 2009 at 1:35 pm

Awesome deal. Yahoo already makes the best online applications for internet users. The added search enhancement will make it truly the only starting point for me on the web. My one request is that when they do make searches more “personal” that they still honor people’s privacy – something I don’t feel that Google does with either searches or their mail.

Keep up the great work, Yahoo!

Subraya Mallya | August 2nd, 2009 at 1:34 pm

Carol
I think this was long time coming. Yahoo is much better managing media and content properties and let MS and Google headbutt on the search area.

Does this deal also include MS acquiring any of the great technologies Yahoo already had in their search product areas? or those technologies will be left to die their natural death? I am sure they would be worth something for microsoft – IP/patents whatever. and might be some salvage value for Yahoo.

Subraya Mallya

John Webley | August 3rd, 2009 at 1:26 pm

This news is potentially the most frightening that I have heard. If it transpires the way that it sounds then I have severe doubts as to possibility of our compnay surving.

At this time we are extremely satisfied with Yahoo PPC advertising – less so with google – and Microsoft is a complete and utter failure. With exactly the same terms and adverts the result is almost zero expenditure with them and almost zero clicks and business. In pursuit of what they keep referring to as “relevance” they seem to have cleverly come up with a system that actually precludes searchers from finding the thing that they want and can find readily on either Yahoo or Google.

Please think hard before changing to their algorithms, or whatever it is that produces this situation

Sincerely,

John Webley
President. KOLNEX.

agnes | August 3rd, 2009 at 10:42 pm

A very nice deal and all the searchers will benefit from yahoo and microsoft.Hope and all the best wishes and success for giving the better search with the combination of yahoo and microsoft.

RS | August 8th, 2009 at 7:40 am

Hm, people cried when Jerry didn’t make a deal, now they cry when Carol does. Seems yahoo can do no right in some people’s eyes. Carol, your image needs a re-branding. I don’t mean a change your logo sort of thing either. People seem to expect bad decisions from the company.

If the superior Yahoo Search will be turned over to MS for them to develop, that would be great. If however, you have just become the marketing arm of Bing (which I hear sucks), that would be less than good.

You have some clarifications to make, maybe?

RS | August 8th, 2009 at 7:44 am

And don’t reference your self-promotion site in explaining…that site gives all hype and no information.
Just tell us the facts. Who is doing what? MS is funding development of Yahoo Search? MS is running Yahoo Search now? Or what? Just the facts ma’am, not hype like “internet ecosystem” and unfulfilled promises like “better everything else”(!).

Reuel | August 8th, 2009 at 1:34 pm

Very nice deal.

“Yahoo! + Microsoft Bing” must get at least 40% usage and succeed in bringing google usage down to about 40%.

Consumers and advertisers need real competition.

Giving up google for BING is like giving up a “Black and White TV” for a “color TV”.

Happiness!

zugu | August 9th, 2009 at 1:44 am

I never was a Yahoo! fan, but I can clearly see the need for competition in the search engine business. Bing is terrible and the Yahoo! search engine is many times better than Bing. I really hope you’ll save some backups, Yahoo!, for the time when you’ll decide to break the agreement with Microsoft – that time will probably come sooner than you expect.

amjad Mahmood | August 9th, 2009 at 9:50 pm

Every corporate deal finally stands against users,byers or subscribers.otherwise ther is no needof DEEAALs.

Microsoft itself is monopoly hungry and wants noother opponent in the field.its products are monopoly based.even its softwares are monopoly based.and many us courts confines microsoft for its wrong policies.

for instant,i am common home pc user and i am victim of microsoft many many ways.microsoft do not wants any other software in my PC and on the neme of error not the programme only shuts but the whole website will closed suddenly.and you will see in wonder what happens.i think mirosoft should be soft to other market colleagues and to users like me.

ronald weintraub | September 11th, 2009 at 3:29 pm

hi that DOJ is review the partship micosoft and yahoo that this 2 nd review of the deal of june 28 doj has request more info of deal that micsoft and yahoo partership and there are reports the deal isnt going though in the media and carol job is on the line from stockholders. of the company after she say on the cnbc busness channel she would sell company to micosoft and lie about keeping yahoo around and shut down yahoo down for good. and lie about this deal. my thinking is that her plans first place to shut down yahoo . and sell everything to micosoft .

locodeschamps | September 18th, 2009 at 11:09 am

I hate this deal, bings images results are OK since you dont have to click next page everytime but the rest of the search is bull5h17 i love Y! search, again the images were all flickr but lately they have been adding great innovations like color search, background size search n stuff.

Yahoo needs to be careful with MS since they are known to backstab their partners once they got what they wanted outta them. I personally think that yahoo built the web as we know it and it should remain as a key player. I use everything yahoo and encourage people to do so, your email is a much better experience than gmail, i dont even open hotmail anymore, i have cause most my friends use live messenger, but i personally hate the livemail experience, yes, gmail might have better technology but i dont see it and i like the Y!mail much better, much more with this new apps they showed off recently.

Best of luck to Yahoo and please be careful since Id hate to start using google from now on because I will never be an advocate of the big MS and its ‘ive got so much cash i can buy everything’ well u cant buy me as a consumer so ….

go YAHOO and go OPENSOURCE

jack | September 24th, 2009 at 4:24 pm

I have been involved with SEO and search technologies for the past 8 years. Yahoo in my opinion has always had slightly better results than bing/msn. What this means to me is that, since Microsoft has lots of money, and yahoo does not, they are teaming up with a Microsoft in order to compete better against google. Ok so we got all of that, I just don’t want yahoo to get hurt in all of this because Microsoft has the deep pockets, and since they are the ones developing the search technology, I don’ t wan’t them to take it away from Yahoo.. and say ok this tech is ours. Yahoo should have measures in the deal that says everything developed by Microsoft in this field also belongs to yahoo. I really like the idea of this deal, as long as Microsoft plays by the rules.

pinoytutorial | October 29th, 2009 at 8:05 am

Carol who? oh you mean carol bartz, the woman who said “she will kick some butt” to raise yahoo from the ashes but obviously failed?

or the other carol bartz who bitterly said, “Yahoo was never a search engine” when she knew in her heart that Google see right through the company.

Or the far-version of Carol bartz, the one Mr. Icahn called a “loser”?

I guess those 3 carol bartz looks the same to me

detail sources: http://pinoytutorial.com/techtorial/is-carol-bartz-a-yahoo-%E2%80%9Closer%E2%80%9D-ceo/