Performance Review: Google vs. Micro-hoo
An anonymous friend from college points out an interesting aside:
There has been lots of buzz about the battle royale between Microsoft, Google and Yahoo. For all the jockeying, it's an interesting coincidence that all 3 are back to where they started from 12 months ago.
To a buy & hold investors, nobody in this group impressed much:
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I actually have a fascinating piece of intel about the Yahoo! deal, but I cannot release it til Monday. See this space then for a shocker.
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Friday, February 08, 2008 | 01:30 PM | Permalink
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Comments
I just glance at the fish cartoon and say 'yup'. And AOL hiding behind Google? - nice touch.
Posted by: Paul in NYC | Feb 8, 2008 1:37:50 PM
Barry,
This deal demonstrates how poorly Microsoft is really managed. Didn't MSFT have something close to $30 billion in cash during the dotcom implosion? Why didn't they buy Yahoo then?
MSFT could have bought Yahoo for between $5 and $7 billion in 2001-2002.
This deal will be disaster.
Posted by: Christopher Laudani | Feb 8, 2008 1:54:38 PM
Yahoo will agree to be bought by Google to fight MS?
Posted by: Bob | Feb 8, 2008 2:01:27 PM
Shouldn't that AOL fish be floating belly-up?
Posted by: mappo | Feb 8, 2008 2:02:02 PM
Apparently the cartoon was drawn before the Time Warner fish showed up.
Posted by: Paul in NYC | Feb 8, 2008 2:06:05 PM
This cartoon is completely inaccurate. Look at market cap and how each company makes money. Mr. Softy should be the bloated, gigantic killer whale, while Google is more of a shark or dolphin.
Posted by: GreenMachine | Feb 8, 2008 2:09:18 PM
GreenMachine..
I think the cartoon represents internet business size, not company size.
any guess what may be Barry's Intel??
Posted by: techy | Feb 8, 2008 2:20:32 PM
So Microsoft, that self-proclaimed giant of technology and innovation, wants to be in the advertising business selling tiny little URLs and icons on people's monitor.
Posted by: lbl | Feb 8, 2008 2:22:59 PM
Let's play "reading too much into it": I'll start it off by calling attention to the fact that BR referred to it as the "Yahoo deal" instead of the "Microsoft" or "Microsoft-Yahoo deal," and I'll couple that with YHOO's rumored board meeting today to discuss it, and conclude that they have or will vote to reject it.
Posted by: worth | Feb 8, 2008 2:30:49 PM
The board will reject it and some shareholders will press on creating more trouble for the YHOO stock. Best time to short it now.
Yahoo is such a poorly managed company. They were the most popular portal and yet the most inefficient search engine. Lack of innovation whatsoever. Merging with MSFT would have made the whole thing even uglier, but definitely more profitable. With that most of the free mail market would be gone to MSFT, with more hooks in place for next generation MSFT products which I suspect will be on the web-based OS'es as a counterpart to Google-OS.
Google is becoming a monster itself too which is taken a free ride by many for no reason. However they paint themselves as the white sheep in a very muddy barn. I look forward to seeing small, new and innovative players to the new web
Posted by: Ali Saygin | Feb 8, 2008 3:13:44 PM
Christopher Laudani,
yeah, MSFT is such a poorly managed company - that it is the leader in cap, market share, sales, profitability, survived technology busts big and small intact and stronger than ever, its profits growing at the fastest pace, etc...
The anti-MS bias here is ridiculous. MS will always be the leader, and once it get Y! the party will be over for Google.
Posted by: Max | Feb 8, 2008 3:29:40 PM
Max..
i agree that MS has not done too bad.
but apart from their monopoly in OS which lead to monopoly in office applications, the only other thing i can give credit is their development tools and to some extent their database(sql server).
other than that they have burned money in everything else they tried: Web, zune, xbox etc..
for shareholders that stock is worse than a bank savings account
Posted by: techy | Feb 8, 2008 4:53:59 PM
Max, I agree that MSFT has done many things right, but their vision for the web sure was flawed. How they let GOOG and YHOO get a foothold on search was a huge $$$ mistake. In hindsight, listening to Gates talk about the web 12 or so years ago, and comparing his vision to today's reality is almost painful. The irony in all of this is that IBM's miscalculation with the PC gave birth to Microsoft, just as Microsoft's miscalculation about the web gave birth to Yahoo! & Google.
I agree MSFT is a cash flow machine, but it could have been so much more with a little more vision. Buying YHOO here seems so anticlimatic and disapointing.
Posted by: kk | Feb 8, 2008 4:54:23 PM
BR:
"I actually have a fascinating piece of intel about the Yahoo! deal, but I cannot release it til Monday. See this space then for a shocker."
Yo, Barry! What a coy ploy of secrecy!
So much for free speech, bull disclosure (intended), and self-less-ness!
Have a good weekend sitting on your private information, so to speak, and, yes, my shoulder is healing up quite nicely thank you.
Posted by: PeterR | Feb 8, 2008 6:22:29 PM
Shouldn't that post be changed to What's up with Micro-Hoe, as in call 1 800 I want to be a hoe?
Posted by: Ross | Feb 8, 2008 7:19:35 PM
Barringo,
I may bleed to death before Monday from knawing my fingernails to the bone.
Hahahaha!
Oh, the burden you must have to carry over this long weekend!... Oh, the humanity of it all!
To be able to read Sunday's papers now and not read 'em to us until Monday.
As taunt a psychological drama as you've ever produced!
My rectum is so tight, it may take me 6 weeks of negotiation just to convince it it ain't been sewn shut!
I have a strange sense of a vision of: Oswald's still eating his chicken wings in the depository window; the Japanese Navy's frozen mid-ocean, pre-strike, Pearl; Dewey's a cinch over Truman; Sub-prime is still contained; Napoleon asking "Where's this Waterhoo place?"; John Wilkes Booth is climbin' the stairs; and the Hindenburg is still circling Giant Stadium.
It's too much for me. I can't take!... I just can't! I'm out of nerve medicine.
I won't take a b-r-e-a-t-h until I crack open my copy of TBP Monday!
It's the biggest piece of news I've every waited for.
Don't let us down, Barringo. I hope it's big, big, big.
Make us know it, Monday morning! Don't let us down. Dear merciful God, doN't!!... Please don't!!
Posted by: Eclectic | Feb 9, 2008 8:00:20 AM
I ain't kiddin' Barringo...
You've got me trembling like a dawg crapping on a rattlesnake.
Posted by: Eclectic | Feb 9, 2008 11:57:24 AM
I'm rolling over laughin
(-;
good one eceltic
Posted by: Greg0658 | Feb 9, 2008 1:09:37 PM
Thanks Greg.
You know... it would be a difficult conflict of interests for the dawg.
Can't you just see him, all hunched-up and doing his business, and then he realizes...
(sing songy)
"Hark, what's this I se-e-e?...
...A big ole diamond-back sleep-in' un-der me."
Now, here's the problem as I see it.
-The dawg might decide to quit but still get bit anyway.
-The dawg might *want* to quit, but not be able to... and get bit anyway.
-The dawg might deposit a quiet one right by the snake and not get bit (seems a tad low in probability, you reckon?).
-The snake might be a fake one (they can fool the best) and so the dawg's trembling posture would've been unnecessary, but still unknown to the dawg.
-The worst of all situations would be if the dawg wanted to stop, but couldn't and then accidently dropped one right on top of the snake.
I know one thing.
Before you take a hunch-up, you'd better know if you're on top of a rattlesnake. I think the dawg might get a good education in site preparation.
--
And I know something else. Where else, except on TBP, can you get this type of high quality psychological drama and parody?
And, who else can give it to you as good as... me?
Posted by: Eclectic | Feb 9, 2008 1:59:45 PM
News leaked out that Yahoo board decided to reject Microsoft's offer. Apparently they think the offer is too low: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23084127/. I guess we will find out more details on Monday morning. Thanks Barry for not sharing your news with us.
A little of reading around the web I understand a company cannot outright reject a takeover offer for reasons other than "undervaluation." If they have other reasons not to be absorbed, we get a hint of that when we hear their real price. If that price is higher than what it is, we know they are not interested in being taken over.
Microsoft is already offering way too much for Hoo. A 60% premium for a company that was already overvalued and with sagging earnings and marketshare is too much premium. I hope this deal doesn't go through.
Posted by: bt | Feb 9, 2008 6:04:19 PM
Isn't it cute that the best/freely available graphs still come from yahoo finance.
Posted by: Newlook | Feb 10, 2008 2:13:57 PM
