Yahoo! Outsourcing to Google?
I stumbled upon a great piece written by Mike Arrington at TechCrunch on which he talked about Yahoo!’s options and his general outtake on it. What caught my attention and got me thinking was the idea that Yahoo! would outsource their search advertising unit to Google, which is unlikely to happen because of the anti-competitive nature of it.
“As has been widely reported, Yahoo could increase its cash flow by an estimated 25% if it surrendered to Google and handed over its search advertising business. That could give them enough of an excuse to turn down Microsoft’s offer. To outsource search advertising to Google, though, would be a huge hit to Yahoo’s pride. It’s an implicit acknowledgment that the years of work that went into Yahoo’s Panama project to revamp their search advertising platform was not enough - they still can’t compete with Google.”
I understand why Yahoo! are looking for alternatives to the Microsoft bid. Outsourcing to Google would be a very bad move…dont get me wrong I do love Google, been a fan of Yahoo! and Microsoft too and I also feel some peoples sentimentality and resentment towards Yahoo! being sold to “enemy number 1″ Microsoft. But Yahoo! outsourcing to Google? Why? Just to get away from Microsoft? It will be bad news for the industry. No competition. Dead. Whatever Google decide or say rules..publishers, advertisers and users will suffer in the end. Isnt why are alot people hated Microsoft because of the way they bullied competitiors?
Google has great web products. Google is big and getting bigger (75% of market share). Google has to be checked. Not by policy makers (might be nasty) but a worthy and bigger adversary. Step forward Microsoft. So for the sake of competition and future of the industry put your sentiments and resentments away for now and think whats right for industry. Competition is good, everybody wins especially us the end users.
