Microsoft and Yahoo. Yahoo and Microsoft. Or will it be “Microsoft!” or M! for short on the webpages?

I don’t know what to make of this pending merger. At this stage, word on the Street is that they might even call the whole thing off. Yahoo wants $35-38 per share. Microsoft doesn’t seem to agree. So assuming this happens, are there any benefits for Internet users?

I really can’t think of any. I’m not a Microsoft lover or hater. I have Vista Business and while it’s aesthetically a great face lift on XP, Vista is flat out clunky. Thank goodness i didn’t get Vista Ultimate! Microsoft has proven time and again that they are laggards when it comes to the web. Just take their website. It’s soooo 2005! It’s just clunky. As a company, they seem almost entirely out of touch with consumers and consumer needs. I’m actually amazed how well Microsoft SYNC works in Ford vehicles.

Microsoft has everything to gain from the merger. Basically it knocks out the #2 player in search. Yahoo also has a huge subscriber base for e-mail and a less significant area for shopping and messaging. Microsoft has struggled over the years to have its SEARCH tool widely used. It’s probably because it’s not as good as Yahoo and certainly not as good as Google.

So the Microhoo bid is just Microsoft doing what it does best: eliminating competition. Microsoft would prefer an oligopoly or a monopoly over genuine free market competition. I just hope Microsoft doesn’t ruin what’s left of the Yahoo! brand, which is quite fun! Microsoft does not equal fun. Microsoft = boring.

Microsoft has a slew of bad moves and poor sites. Take MSN and MSNBC. Both horrifically designed sites. Totally unintuitive! On the other hand, look at Yahoo News… i can’t imagine a better news site. It gets you the info you want from a number of areas. It looks believable too. Remember when Microsoft launched Slate 1.0. Yep, that’s another disaster. And all the horrible press over Vista lately. For Microsoft who positions themselves as experts in computer software, they don’t really produce software to validate their positioning. I still maintain that msn, hotmail, and Messenger (now Live Messaging) have only been successful because they are preloaded as defaults in Internet Explorer. If people were given a choice the first time they start up IE as to which homepage they’d choose, I highly doubt that they would pick MSN.

Yahoo! as a business just never got its act together. There has never been internal accountability, particularly in the European division. Someone drops the ball and no one in management frankly can figure out who is accountable. So there have been no repercussions for screw-ups. They just don’t know how to manage their own business.

I think the merger will happen. I’m predicting $36 a share, which is a nice premium on current Yahoo share prices. I don’t think Microsoft will do any better though. The only benefit they get is to remove one more competitor. “If you’re not with us, you’re against us!”