Microhoo - Here We Go Again!

By Aaron Goldman, VP Marketing & Strategic Partnerships

After years of swirling rumors, today Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for a cool $45 billion. While details are still emerging, I thought I’d share the POV I put together back in May of last year when MediaPost asked me for my thoughts on the potential merger. Looking back on what I said back then, I’m not sure I’d change my stance. This could be a great thing for Microsoft, Yahoo, and the industry at large but it will take a lot of time and energy for the synergy to be fully realized…

Microsoft and Yahoo are a perfect match for each other. In Microsoft, you have a leading technology company with the people and processes in place to create and refine leading edge technology solutions for the proven benefit of end users and enterprise corporations. In Yahoo, you have a leading online media company with the people and processes to leverage digital content for the proven benefit of end-users, advertisers/agencies, and content creators/publishers.

Historically, Microsoft has been deficient in creating scalable digital advertising solutions (it wasn't until the recent launch of AdCenter that it offered any real compelling advertising opportunities for marketers). Historically, Yahoo has been deficient in creating scalable technology solutions to deliver better advertising (it wasn't until the recent Panama update that Yahoo did anything meaningful with the Overture search technology it acquired in 2003).

Bring these two together and you have a company that can excel (pun intended) on both sides of the equation and deliver value to all core constituencies – end-users, enterprise, agencies/marketers, content creators/publishers, etc. It might take years for Microhoo to effectively integrate the two companies to deliver on this promise -- but it's becoming increasingly difficult for them to compete individually with Google in the race to control the lion's share of digital marketing budgets. Joining forces just may be their best bet.

Posted by: Aaron Goldman, VP Marketing & Strategic Partnerships