Google / Yahoo / Microsoft : The Square Off

So... Microsoft offers billions for Yahoo!, and Eric Schmidt promptly offers Yahoo! help (even financial) to help them stave off their sale to Microsoft.

Why? Google dominates search and online advertising, and the merger would see tremendous difficulties reconciling the cultures and technologies of the two entities.

Some say Google just wants to see the price go higher. This may be true, but I think there is something deeper in this as well, and that is the culture clash between Redmond and Silicon Valley.

By buying Yahoo!, MS would be buying a major slice of the Valley, and therefore literally turf in the battle for skills, talent and exposure down South. I wouldn't be surprised to see Yahoo! becoming de facto MS South for a while, as the company figures out how to combine the two companies.

Google has more to lose than the beating their stock is receiving. Google could lose the battle for the services orientated world that is coming. They won't to control the cloud, but as search matures and becomes a less disruptive class of functionality, and as others copy their other businesses, Google will struggle to keep the financials they have managed to deliver to Wall Street thus far.

MS have proven themselves masters at perfecting what others have done before them. Will advertising and search be no different to Server OSs, GUIs, etc? I wonder, and deep down inside... I hope so!

Because a big Google, is just as bad as a big Microsoft!