Long ago on a misty island nestled far away in the rough and merciless sea roamed a vast network of enormous and viscous dinosaurs known as Microsaurus Rex. Nothing got in their way. They ate what they wanted. They trampled what they didn’t. Life was good.
You know where this is going, of course. Like the faint and unconvincing acting of Jack Black had us believing that the entire crew was shocked and horrified to find something more frightening than the band of T-Rex, so have the executives in Redmond come to a single and inevitable conclusion. Google Kong can kick our ass.
With the news this morning that Microsoft has tendered a $44.6 billion dollar offer to buy Yahoo, the network is ablaze with questions. What will it mean for the consumer? What will happen to MSN? Seems low, will someone else step in? What happens to AT&T now that it’s got the Mac guy offering to split a dime bag with him while the Windows guy wants to do his taxes?
Microsoft is clearly concerned and has been for some time. This deal has been in the works for well over a year, and it goes a long way to keeping them in step with Google’s Android announcement. Many have been predicting for months that the battle would eventually move off of the computer screens and onto our phones.
Yahoo’s very friendly relationship with SBC/AT&T only strengthens the belief that this deal is an attempt to dig even deeper into the mobile user base as Google readies a brigade of sharpened shovels. Extend the thought process even further and it would not be surprising to see a Microsoft buyout of another Yahoo / AT&T bedfellow, Tivo.
Honestly, though, it’s hard to imagine that combining Yahoo with Microsoft with AT&T can be considered a truly formidable foe to the massive and muscular ape that is Google. Hell, AT&T is still struggling with the SBC merger long after it was completed.
Long-term, however, it will without a doubt lead the way to more affordable or free services for the fleeing victims caught in the middle. For anyone who enjoys the free benefits of the Google Maps vs. Microsoft Maps battle, there will almost certainly be more of that to come as the battling beasts claw at each other for the right to consume we who are the tiny scrambling snacks with bank accounts.
