After writing my piece on Microsoft, they announced their $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo!
Right or wrong choice?
As I said in December, they should buy into the future and hence Facebook or
something less over-valued in the Web 2.0+ world. Nearly $45 billion
seems a bit much for a website that's struggling to compete in this new
world. Mind you, Microsoft may have competition in their $45 billion bid to buy Yahoo.
There's a good analysis here from The Times though, if you want the real low-down, and an interesting view from Forbes that says it's the wrong choice. Meanwhile, the New York Times appears to have read my December column
and concurs that Microsoft is repeating IBM's lifecycle of the new
thing, the monopoly, the has-been, the renewal and the rebirth (maybe
another column here).
Meanwhile, for their next purchase, perhaps Microsoft should checkout this list of the top 100 alternative search engines or Adonomics.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
