Late yesterday, news emerged that Microsoft and Yahoo were in some pretty legitimate talks for Microsoft to buy Yahoo’s web search business.
Details on the deal were scarce, but the deal is rumored to be in the $3 billion range.
When Microsoft consolidated MSN Search and Live Search at the end of May and launched Bing, tongues were sent wagging about Microsoft’s possible intentions. I suggested that Microsoft may be trying to force Yahoo into a sale, or they may be looking into building their presence in cloud computing.
It looks like maybe Microsoft is trying to do both. Microsoft has been pushing Office 2010 as the next great thing for cloud computing – a free version of Microsoft Office, online.
Now with reports emerging about a Microsoft-Yahoo deal in the works, Microsoft’s true intentions are becoming clear.
By snatching up Yahoo’s share of the search engine market share, Microsoft would hold nearly 30 percent of the US market share. Globally, Microsoft would be positioned with just under 10 percent of the search engine market, compared to Google’s dominant 88 percent.
For now we’ll have to wait and see what happens. It will also be interesting to see what, if any, impact this acquisition would have on Google’s anti-trust case.
By: Zack S.
Tags: Google, Microsoft Yahoo deal, search engines, US market share
