10 Reasons Microsoft Should/Shouldn’t Buy Yahoo

by Eric Lundquist

Part 1: 10 Reasons Microsoft Should Buy Yahoo

1. Only way to get within spitting distance of Google’s lead in search

2. Much more exciting than buying $50 billion in U.S. savings bonds

3. Possibility that Microsoft could once again be seen as a cool place to work

4. Will give Microsoft time for Ray Ozzie’s Web strategy to work

5. Steve Ballmer is a better boss than Terry Semel

6. Time for Jerry Yang and David Filo to stop pretending to sumo wrestle and go fishing

7. Microsoft can turn all of Washington state into one big server farm; Yahoo can’t do that for California

8. Microsoft can change its name to “Microsoft!”

9. All the Yahooligans can finally cash out and act like grownups

10. For an extra $5 billion, Microsoft can buy the Wall Street Journal and get a favorable story about the merger on Page 1 next to the article about Google actually being run by aliens

Part 2: 10 Reasons Microsoft Should Not Buy Yahoo

1. Microsoft’s acquisitions always get consumed and disappear into the Redmond maw

2. Microsoft would rename Yahoo as Microsoft Search Engine 1.0

3. Microsoft would be better off spending its $50 billion on the next generation of technology instead of something two generations behind

4. Sunny Sunnyvale and rainy Redmond will never mix

5. Big technology acquisitions never work

6. Ballmer won’t be able to resist telling the Yahooligans how to do their jobs

7. Microsoft execs will be angry when they realize it was Google and not Yahoo that bought YouTube

8. Microsoft execs will be angry when they find the Yahoo infrastructure running on open source outperforms Microsoft operations running on Windows

9. Bill Gates will insist that Yahoo be made to work only on Internet Explorer

10. Yahoos will be reduced to boohoos as Ray Ozzie presents a million-slide PowerPoint presentation on the excitement of Microsoft Live!

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