No seriously... the news just hitting the rounds is that Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo.

Microsoft Offers $44.6B for Yahoo

 

Only 44B?

All I wonder about is what the merged company should be called.  Perhaps Microo! or Yasoft.

A common abbreviation might be M$! .
 

M$! would actually be an abbreviation for what many people would be thinking:  M$!%@~#*&.

 

Couldn't Gogle have bought them first? They're at least less "evil" than M$...

Google less evil than M$?? Not sure I agree

felicopter - maybe this?

More here

This was an interesting post about which directions some of the services might take:

Microsoft-Yahoo: What Will Stay And What Will Go?
 

I still think that MS are a bit more "not so good" than Google. At least I trust google enough to use Gmail and Google Calendar.

I wonder what will happen to Yahoo Mail? "Windows Live Yahoo Mail"?

Hah... I wonder if you put two crappy mail systems together, do you get an even crappier result....

If they do join together I doubt everything would happen as quickly as everyone makes it out to be. It would be slow and gradual and I think ramping up the competition against google will only spur both sides to develop better products, thus helping the users.

Nah, I don't think it'll happen quickly at all... They'll have a lot to wade through and settle.

Meanwhile, did anyone see Google's reaction to it?

Isn't that rich?!

i think the business decisions will happen quickly, but the implications for the products and the teams who build and run them will be a slow, painful, pulling-out-fingernails experience for those involved. i've worked on product development teams at both microsoft and yahoo, and it would be hard to find two product team cultures more different. there will be tears and blood shed and many good products will die a slow and painful death.

Interesting... From the outside, they don't look very different to me. Neither seem to know/care about their customers IMO.

Some folks over at Flickr are flipping out and have started the  MICROSOFT: KEEP YOUR EVlL GRUBBY HANDS OFF OF OUR FLICKR group.

Some of the images are hilarious!

 link

Yahoo Board to Reject Microsoft Bid

They could be trying to fetch a higher price, or the "no could really be a no"

Now it gets exciting!

Yay! xD