Aral Balkan

Typical, I spend the morning with my accountant and the blogosphere erupts with news of Microsoft's take-over bid for Yahoo!

Needless to say, Flash and Flex developers are watching this closely as Yahoo! has traditionally been very supportive of the Flash Platform. Something that will, no doubt, change if Microsoft buys it.

I haven't really given it much thought but initial questions that pop into my head include:

Will the merger be allowed under antitrust laws?

Is Flickr going to be redone in Silverlight?

Is Microsoft doing this to gain dominance in web applications or search or advertising or all of the above?

If Microsoft buys Yahoo!, will Google buy Adobe?

Interesting times.

Comments

• Microsoft + Yahoo = microshaftyoo.o

  by Mark on 2008-02-13 01:09:12

• Dave, I don't think Google will be allowed to big due to antitrust laws. They would have a monopoly in search.

  by Aral on 2008-02-02 17:37:20

• All this talk about MSFT/YHOO around the web, yet, I've seen no one mention maybe Google will bid as well?

  by David Stone on 2008-02-02 11:30:43

• ... oh wait, just been to Techcrunch, and greeted with the headline "News Corp. Scrambles To Bid For Yahoo", as well as others apparently. Interesting.

  by David Stone on 2008-02-02 11:32:23

• Google taking Adobe.. That's the "natural" reaction.

  by hassan on 2008-02-01 16:34:30

• I am curious to see what will happen to Yahoo's ASTRA ( Flash Developer Center http://developer.yahoo.com/flash/) and their Flash Mapping API. It is not hard to imagine Virtual Earth replacing Yahoo Maps as well as Microsoft using Yahoo's applications to aggressively push Silverlight.

  by Andrei on 2008-02-01 17:56:43

• Why would this purchase bid prompt Google to try and buy Adobe? It's easy to see the benefits Microsoft gets from such a purchase of a struggling company (treble its current share of the search market for example). Adobe is riding high though and offers no obvious benefits to Google that I can see.

  by David Arno on 2008-02-01 20:19:17

• It's not going to happen! You have to believe me.. This can't happen. I've just spend 2 hours re organizing my flick photos.. YAHOO don't you dare! As for the Adoble or Goobe I don't think there is a chance.. (Right suit Adobe???) It's just 2 years since the last shock.. To early..

  by savvasmalamas on 2008-02-01 21:42:42

• YAHOO by Microsoft will be the new name. YAHMic!

  by G. Simon on 2008-03-03 06:39:32

• I just read your article about the potential Yahoo/Microsoft merger and thought you might be interested in a new blog post I wrote about some of the employee exodus going on over at Yahoo these days http://blog.bincsearch.com/?p=153 . We’re pretty tapped into the flow of talent out of Yahoo and thought the world might find this of interest. If you’re ever looking for information that might be helpful for future articles, please feel free to reach out to me anytime. Boris Epstein CEO – BINC www.askbinc.com

  by Boris Epstein on 2008-03-26 18:13:22

• [...] Then Microsoft comes along, and what do they happen to be pushing hard right now… ? – their very own Rich Internet platform, Silverlight.What’s going to happen to all the flash friendly apps hosted by Yahoo? Will they go the way of Yahoo maps?  Will Microsoft slowly replace those services with silverlight? Aral Balkan wonders the same thing. [...]

  by Microsoft and Yahoo on 2009-07-19 01:41:47