Google announced on the Google blog this morning that they’re dropping the deal with Yahoo. Instead of standing up to government antitrust scrutiny, they’ve chosen to simply walk away. Personally I think they’ll wait for a “friendlier” government and try again next year; after all they’ve been calling Obama “the Google president” internally for months. However, let’s pretend for a second that doesn’t happen. Google has really left yahoo at the altar for good…
Where does this really leave yahoo? Yahoo must have been counting on this $800 million in revenue to help it float while they execute the biggest turnaround in .com history. yahoo may have no choice in the end but to either be acquired at a fraction of what Microsoft offered earlier this year or go the way of pets.com; just another internet company turned bad joke at Bucks. After botching the MSFT deal, yang lost a lot credibility but it was mostly recovered by the Google deal. With that falling apart this morning what does he have to stand on as a leader? For all the smoke and mirrors yahoo is worth significantly less on all levels than before jerry’s grand plan in the post-Semel years. From the first MSFT advances to now yahoo has become pretty much a talent abyss. Perfect for MSFT who really only wanted to buy marketshare.
jerry yang, meet Jonathan Abrams… I think you’ll have a lot in common soon. And, I believe you already know Mister Ballmer,
