Paul Graham recently proclaimed Microsoft is dead. Time will tell, but at this very moment I’d rather be Microsoft than Yahoo.
Microsoft is still a leader. They rule the OS space, they rule the corporate desktop. They remain influential in many areas. They may not rule the web, but at least they remain leaders in very profitable spaces. And they have $40 billion in the bank.
Where is Yahoo’s leadership? What are they leading in? If they are leading, are their leadership positions profitable? Is their trajectory up or down? Their revenues are relatively flat, growth is flat, it’s all flat. You can stand to be flat for awhile when you are way ahead, but when you’re #2 and flat you’re not in a good place.
And it’s not like Yahoo is being attacked on all sides. They’re not being eaten alive by a gang of rats. They are being devoured by the 900-pound Googlerilla in the room. Google’s revenue is growing at twice the rate of the Internet ad business overall and 9x faster than sales at Yahoo.
Yahoo’s woes seem like a management issue. Semel’s gotta be on the way out soon. Yahoo has a boatload of talent. Yahoo is full of good people. But they’re not being led in the right direction. That’s on Semel.
So, yeah, for now I’d rather be Microsoft than Yahoo.
What about you?
Niket Patel
on 20 Apr 07I’d Google.
Joe Cooper
on 20 Apr 07Yahoo is leader at page views on the Internet. I’d prefer that over Microsoft’s areas of leadership. But, I think Yahoo is run by a bunch of Yahoos. They’ve got a vision problem and a culture problem, and maybe they’re getting it figured out, but they drove a long way down the wrong road before stopping to check the map. It’ll take them a while to get back to the highway.
Entrepreneur
on 20 Apr 07At the risk of seeming like a sycophant, I’d rather be 37signals. Big corporations do not excite me; the thought of doing something well and making enough to live on from it (and maybe more than enough to live on) is where it’s at.
I don’t want to work for a big company; I want to have a job that makes me happy.
Ugur Gundogmus
on 20 Apr 07This is one of the best comments I have read lately. I totally agree that Yahoo is dying faster than Microsoft.
Cooles Name Ever
on 20 Apr 07Ugur, And you have one of the coolest names ever. I’m not kidding. I know I’m pronouncing it wrong here, but man do I like trying to say “ugurgundogmus”.
Andy Kant
on 20 Apr 07I’d rather be Microsoft in almost all situations other than the ones that Google controls. I think his perception of Microsoft being dead is a result of the environment he lives in. Silicon Valley is a small area compared to the rest of the world…where Microsoft is dominant. I know that at least in Milwaukee, pretty much everything is developed with Microsoft technologies (specifically .NET). I would definitely agree that they aren’t as dominant as other companies in the web space, but thats where it ends.
(from the article) “Windows is for grandmas”...and OS X is for the computer illiterate. I use a MacBook Pro with OS X as my primary operating system now, but it has to be about the most dumbed down system I have ever come across. Don’t get me wrong, its way better than Windows for general tasks like email, messaging, and browsing the web; but I can’t do anything low level that I want without having to hack around in bash. Whenever I want to actually be productive, I boot into Windows via Boot Camp.
Mike
on 20 Apr 07I’m not so sure a comparison is relevant in choosing to be Yahoo or Microsoft.
Sure, Yahoo lags Google in search but when you look at the overall suite of services, I think Yahoo’s tools are better integrated than Google’s. Google’s offerings come across as scattered and un-polished (for example, what do you mean I can only be logged into one Google service at a time?). Sure, once Google integrates their suite of services, it will be fabulous, but how long will that take? I won’t even mention Google’s purchase of YouTube, which is going to be a liability for years to come.
None of these companies are going to die anytime soon. If leadership is Yahoo’s biggest problem, I would rather be there. The businees model is still good.
Niket Patel
on 20 Apr 07“I totally agree that Yahoo is dying faster than Microsoft.”
Its hard for me to be agree, I’m flickr, del.icio.us user. In last 2 years I didn’t used any MS product on daily basis.
Christopher Hawkins
on 20 Apr 07I’d rather be MS than pretty much anyone, ever.
Graham’s essay is informed only by the echo chamber that he finds himself in. Look at his technology choices and his peer group. Of course he has a skewed view of MS. MS is dead in his personal universe.
For the rest of us, however, MS is still the 900-pound ape. And they’re going to be for a long, long time.
Sacrilicious
on 20 Apr 07Yahoo provides internet service in Japan, and seems to have kept the ‘top of mind’ title. At least on the surface, they seem to keep innovating as the Google onslaught proceeds. They should remain on top in the same way Microsoft has remained the slow and steady that wins the race over Apple and OSS. And, I second sycophants- oops, entrepreneur’s thought. 37 and Goog are working off their blueprint, Yahoo and Microsoft are bloated and volatile as they grasp for straws.
Stephen
on 20 Apr 07A year ago, I think I’d agree with Paul Graham. Today, not so much. In that year, I joined the corporate world where Microsoft is firmly entrenched. Apple is still very much “the other” brand and web-based apps like Basecamp are viewed with suspicion (misplaced, I know) because the data doesn’t reside on our servers.
If I had to choose, I’d be Microsoft over Yahoo. MS still has the money to destroy competitors as they did with Netscape in the 90s. What rival has Yahoo conquered? *
disclaimer: buying a company doesn’t countUgur Gundogmus
on 20 Apr 07Thank you, Coolest Name Ever. “Ugur” means “luck” in Turkish.
I think Yahoo is not innovative enough. They haven`t done anything extraordinary for a long time. Yahoo is only trying to copy Google. But it is too late.
Microsoft is still the biggest player in OS.
Ben Mc
on 20 Apr 07I think you are right on the money in terms of “who’s leading Yahoo?” This is a time of Internet celebrity such as Jobbs, Gates, Ballmer, Dell, Sergey and Larry Page. It’s about leadership, and it’s a time to put a face and a mission with Yahoo.
As for who would I rather be, that’s a tough one. Yahoo seems so much more fun, but Microsoft has the money. It’s the old, wealth and happiness conundrum.
Mike Rundle
on 20 Apr 07I don’t think I’ve visited Yahoo.com more than a handful of times in the past 3 years, and that was only to check out a redesign or something new, not as part of my daily browsing routine.
Niket, you say that you use Flickr and delicious a lot so that automatically makes you a Yahoo user, but it doesn’t. Yahoo didn’t come up with those ideas or service, they simply bought them from the creators. If you were a Yahoo News junkie or a Games fan the argument would hold up, but you’re just using applications that Yahoo purchased that you were probably using prior to the Yahoo acquisition. I don’t think anything valuable was added to either Flickr or delicious post-acquisition, so in that frameset, Yahoo is letting these services flounder.
I’m personally not a fan of Microsoft from a consumer perspective however no one can deny that they are a fantastic success story from a business and marketing perspective. Yahoo has been losing the race for a long time, and I don’t know if they can ever get back in the game.
sloan
on 20 Apr 07Hm. MS has the issue of having so much mass that it is hard for it to change anything. And by that, I mean they make too much money still off of the OS and Office to really have the ability to jump into other stuff full fledged. They have too many users that they try and please all at once and hence have feature creep.
I think Yahoo is in a worse position right now, but I think the nature of what they do allows for them to change direction more easily if given the right leadership. I just don’t think MS “gets it” and I think MS has tougher decisions to make in the near future than Yahoo.
Stacy
on 20 Apr 07In situations like these, it’s the management that counts. So the real question is who do you want to bet on long term – Gates, Semel, or Schmidt. Only Gates has successfully demostrated that he can turn his 800 lb gorilla around on a dime. But since he is transitioning out of the company and giving the reins to the Oz, that evens the playing field a bit. Even so, I easily give Microsoft the edge.
BUT, since this has become a hit-driven business, whomever gets the next “ad-word” startup wins for the next 5 years.
Nathan Bowers
on 20 Apr 07What really matters is how companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google attract and retain talent. Microsoft has been losing its best people for years now. The “law of crappy people” is certainly at work there.
Yahoo is probably almost as bad. It matters to good tech people that Yahoo is run by a typical Hollywood guy, and that Yahoo has a nasty habit of selling Chinese dissidents up the river.
Scott Meade
on 20 Apr 07the 900-pound Googlerilla in the room.
good one!
John Lascurettes
on 20 Apr 07For those that are saying Graham is off for saying MS is dead, go to the article and read the followup at the end. He’s not saying it’s dead and gone, but that it’s dead in the water. Just as IBM didn’t go (and hasn’t gone) away when it’s monopoly was dying, neither will Microsoft. The days of MS calling the shots to the tech industry at large is quickly coming to an end.
John Lascurettes
on 20 Apr 07PS: and the day can’t come soon enough for me.
Anonymous Coward
on 20 Apr 07The days of MS calling the shots to the tech industry at large is quickly coming to an end.
How’s that? They’re still calling Google’s shots because Google is just trying to do what MS has already done: Build a wildly successful office suite.
Cesar
on 20 Apr 07To tell the truth I would rather be Adobe then Microsoft over Yahoo or Google. The reason being is that Adobe’s and Microsoft’s reach extends past the virtual space of the Internet with there office productivity software. Adobe’s innovation of print and web software is what most if not all people use to publish top quality material both online and offline.
I think what Yahoo is missing is a vision of where it wants to go and a real leader that will get them there. It just seems to me Yahoo is mimicking Google and vice-versa. Google wants to gather the information and Yahoo wants to control the crowds, but neither want to create innovative ways to do it they both seem to want to buy innovation rather than create it.
Eric J Gruber
on 20 Apr 07I’d pick Yahoo!
It’s better to be a slave in heaven than a star in hell.
Hurry
on 20 Apr 07I rather be working at any big corporation in the USA or in the UE rather than being stuck in Romania. So for me Microsoft and Yahoo are a both good choises.
Jeff
on 20 Apr 07The problem is that people view Microsoft as just Windows. But Microsoft is a lot of other things as well. I’m no fan of Windows myself for general computer use (I’m a switcher), but I live day in and day out in Visual Studio. And here’s the kicker: I like it there. I love developing software in this tool, and beta 1 of the next version, released today, has amazing enhancements to C#.
I love my Xbox 360 too.
Greg
on 20 Apr 07“I totally agree that Yahoo is dying faster than Microsoft.”
What? Neither one is dying at all.
Microsoft still owns the desktop on, what, 80% of PCs, especially in offices, all over the planet. Ubuntu is great, but it would take a complete paradigm shift for MS to have anything less than half of what they have now. They aren’t going anywhere, for a long time.
Yahoo, who knows. But they survived the first bubble bursting, and even if there’s another, I don’t see them going away – they actually have revenue streams this time, beyond buying ads – their ad network, flickr pro accounts, Yahoo stores, etc.
JF
on 20 Apr 07I totally agree that Yahoo is dying faster than Microsoft.
I didn’t say either of these companies were dying, so I’m not sure who you are agreeing with. ;)
Eric
on 20 Apr 07I’d rather be Apple.
Derek Scruggs
on 20 Apr 07In fairness to Graham, he was talking about startups. It used to be that every startup had to worry about Microsoft coming and eating their lunch. Now they’re much more likely to be worried about Google.
Ryan
on 20 Apr 07I’ll take Micro$oft FTW! Deep pockets, intelligent people, and new (fresh) leadership just around the corner. M$ could actually suprise everyone over the next few years…
Jamie
on 20 Apr 07I think Yahoo still has a chance to become an entertainment channel. But you’re right, they have the wrong manager. Give Semel the boot.
Ugur Gundogmus
on 20 Apr 07Yes, they are dying.
Of course, this is not an hockey game and there is no “sudden death”. Big corporations die slowly. Both have lost the “focus”. Still, MS is powerful enough.
Google is the search engine of the world. Microsoft is the operating system of the word. (+Office Suite) What is Yahoo?
Leon
on 20 Apr 07Makes me wonder what Jason Fried would say if Yahoo offered him the CEO spot.
I would guess stay right where you are. Too bad you wouldn’t be able to use it as leverage with your boss for a raise, though.
JF
on 20 Apr 07Makes me wonder what Jason Fried would say if Yahoo offered him the CEO spot.
Ha! Like that would ever happen! And if it did, the answer would be no. 37signals is the only place I want to be. And besides, if I left DHH would probably run 37s right into the ground… I couldn’t let that happen ;)
Nat
on 20 Apr 07I’d rather be Alberto Gonzales. The guy could start showing up to work without any pants and he’d still keep his job.
Adam A
on 20 Apr 07I’d actually choose Yahoo.
Microsoft has shown time and time again that they are unable to change and adapt. Almost everything that they have been doing recently has come across as a desperate attempt to catch up, or stop the bleeding.
I don’t know if anyone has heard of Microsoft Silverlight, which was released recently. As far as I can tell, they are positioning it as a flash replacement/killer. Why? Flash is THE standard now. It is getting better with each release. When it comes to media, video, etc., web developers can feel confident that ninety-whatever percent of online users will be able to view their content without downloading any extra software. As a ‘surfer’, I am not looking forward to navigating to a site and being pushed to download another plug-in. And you know that microsoft will be implementing this across their entire array of sites and portals.
Look also at the response to Vista. On one side, MS deserves credit for making XP (SP2) a very stable and supported OS. On the other hand, almost all of the new changes in Vista appear to be responses to OS X.
ASP.NET is touted as a standards-compliant development framework. Not out of the box, however. It takes quite a bit of tweaking and knowledge to make it so.
Instead of focusing on a group of applications/technologies, and making them better and better with each iteration, MS seems hell-bent on releasing new apps/portals/technologies, etc as fast as possible, regardless of the demand. Half the time, I can’t even figure out what their new stuff is. As a developer, I need to choose carefully what technologies I am going to focus on, and devote time to mastering. It is hard to do this with the magnitude of noise coming out of Redmond.
Now, Yahoo, on the other hand seems like they are doing nothing. I def appreciate the YUI library, and the tools that they have put out for developers. And they definitely have many very smart people working there. So does Microsoft.
I believe that Yahoo can be changed with a shift in management. I believe that MS is past this point. It is going to take some major restructuring and house-cleaning for MS to position themselves as innovators again.
ronconnor
on 20 Apr 07hey signallers;
great post, yes. 2 different companies – ms and yahoo. but if you read this blog ya gotta go w/ yahoo over ms in over the long haul.
but enough of that. these popular posts make me curious of something:
Q: does the comment tally on the popular posts stop in the same range? or how many comments does it takes to discourage any more?
Bruno
on 20 Apr 07I rather be working for a company that actually values me than for the one I am working for right now. 37signals are you hiring… please please.
On another note, I would prefer to be yahoo than google. They just need to be more innovative.
Ben Atkin
on 20 Apr 07@JF
And besides, if I left DHH would probably run 37s right into the ground… I couldn’t let that happen ;)
Very funny, especially since IIRC, DHH majored both in Business and Computer Science (whether it was two separate programs or a single integrated program, I can’t remember).
Once someone writes a list of great Jason Fried quotes, that one will be near the top of the list.
Jon Nichols
on 20 Apr 07At the fundamental business level, Yahoo! has 2 major problems, and despite all the talk of innovation and cool apps, the problems are very unsexy.
First, Yahoo! needs to generate more revenue per search. I think Google gets something like 3 times more than Yahoo.
Second, Yahoo! needs to get their publisher network finished finished and opened to the world.
Everything else is just noise. These 2 properties represent the major difference between Yahoo! and Google. Sure, Google has greater market share in search, but the difference doesn’t come close to describing the differences in financial performance. And Yahoo! has the clear lead in pageviews.
It’s easy to focus on all the cool things that these companies are trying to do, but in the end what separates the 2 is their ability to get us to click on advertising. And there is no doubt that Google is so far ahead of everyone else.
Neeraj Kumar
on 20 Apr 07I had rathe be Yahoo. No doubt about it. MS has more money and that’s it. Show me leadershipe from MS in last 10 years. All they have produced is Vista ( no one noticed), IE7 ( lags behind FF in almost everything) and Zune ( what’s that).
They have money but I don’t see a vision there.
Kim Siever
on 20 Apr 07I would choose Flickr and Yahoo! Groups over any similar product out there.
marcos
on 20 Apr 07Yahoo still has one foot in the web portal business, while trying to find a foothold in web services. Google is all about web services; it’s deeply and genetically ingrained in the culture. Someone above mentioned that Yahoo might make a good channel. That’s the problem. Channel’s are so 20th Century. Yahoo can’t seem to make up it’s mind where it wants to go, forward or back.
Outside of Flickr, which was an acquisition, I really can’t stand Yahoo. As a user, it asks too much of me, and it rubs me the wrong way.
All MS has ever been concerned about, from a cultural point of view, is dominating. How boring! Any internal drives to innovate will be subordinated to this drive to dominate. The end result is that they will do neither successfully nor for long. They become less relevant as each day passes.
Babulal Benaspathi
on 21 Apr 07I would rather be Infor. Making money off of dead software firms with 87 percent profitability while not being public. That is some sweet stuff baby
AndrewH
on 21 Apr 07Comparing MS to Yahoo is silly. MS and Yahoo only ‘compete’ in one category Search; (a small category to MS, 90% of Yahoo), and who cares, Google rules that roost.
As far as a a search results page, I’d rather be Yahoo. But to only have 26% of the search market, I’d rather be Google.
As far as an OS goes I’d rather be Apple.
As far as a browser, I’ll take Fire Fox.
As far as video game, gimme a Wii, then a good old fashioned Ms. PacMan
As far as Productivity suite, MS. All the hype over online apps (Word, Excel crap) is silliness. Will anyone be using Google’s Presently in 5 years? How about 12 months. Nope. Why, because you’ll still have your computer within arms reach, and have Office installed on it.
I don’t even pair Yahoo with Flickr, unless I have to login, and forgot my password.
Wake me up when Yahoo enter a second category.
Chris Carter
on 21 Apr 07I’d rather be the company which shows sustained long-term profitability. Lots of short-sightedness and lack of historical knowledge about Microsoft out there…
Mark
on 21 Apr 07To Niket Patel and others who preferred Yahoo because of the services they provide:
The article says it would rather be an “owner” of Microsoft than Yahoo. It did not say it would rather be a customer of Microsoft than Yahoo.
Sure, from the user’s point of view, Yahoo’s services seem more integrated than Google’s, but that’s not the point of the article. Read the article from the point of view of a stockholder. From a stockholder’s point of view, it doesn’t matter if the services are better integrated if the profitability of the company is not going anywhere.
Tony
on 21 Apr 07Yahoo definately dropped the ball for a while, but I think they’ve got some really good stuff in the works that has some real potential if it starts to gel.
1). They dropped the ball on searching, but they doing well in the content game (except for video which goutube is going strong). They may have bought flickr, delicious, and upcoming, but each of these services are definately best-of-breed. Answers seems to be doing alright while google’s version flopped.
3). The new advertising platform Panama is arriving late in the game, but yahoo has the size to make it work
As a side note, I am really gratefull for the YUI javascript tools, and the other developer tools they’re pushing.
All Microsoft seems to have in terms of web destinations/portals is MSN? Where is microsoft going to be in 15 years when killer Op systems (ubuntu etc) and apps (open office / google office) are free? So my vote is with yahoo :-)
Tony
on 21 Apr 072.) uuuhhhhh….. No number 2
B
on 21 Apr 07But Tony, Del.icio.us and Upcoming don’t move the needle on their revenues. So while they may be interesting projects, they don’t really help Yahoo’s business except on reputation on the fringy edges.
Where is microsoft going to be in 15 years when killer Op systems (ubuntu etc) and apps (open office / google office) are free? So my vote is with yahoo
15 years is an eternity. Microsoft has a lot more staying power in the bank than Yahoo can dream of. If Yahoo doesn’t get it together they won’t be here 15 years from now. Microsoft will be.
Stephen
on 21 Apr 07I understand that the business community needs to judge Yahoo strictly by the numbers. But as a huge Google, fan, I’ve got to say I’m nevertheless liking the direction Yahoo is going in, judging from their services.
They’ve Web 2.0-ized their site in a very tasteful, restrained way. They are doing cool things like releasing AJAX code to the community. Pipes is very innovative, in a graphic way that Google can’t seem to really nail.
Their search results are a great alternative to Google, which is so beset by spammers that they overfilter the results and put new sites in a sandbox for way too long.
And as a web site manager, I’m really impressed by Yahoo Publisher Network. It’s a great implementation, suffering only from being number 2, and the inevitable problems that creates, like having fewer advertisers and thus less to choose from for relevancy. But it’s coming along nicely. On the other hand, AdSense is great, and Google’s Webmaster Tools are really smokin’ these days.
Mimo
on 21 Apr 07I’d be SAP.
Greg
on 21 Apr 07Show me leadership from MS in last 10 years. All they have produced is Vista ( no one noticed), IE7 ( lags behind FF in almost everything) and Zune ( what’s that).
In the last ten years they also produced Windows XP and 2003, Office 2000, 2003, and 2007, the Xbox and Xbox 360, Windows Media players, what, 8 through 11. Among other things.
Say what you want about MS, but they aren’t standing still. IE7 was a HUGE leap for them, and the 360 is still the only legal source for downloadable HD content. XP is, and is going to remain, easier to use than Ubuntu, running on more hardware than OS X, and as stable as can be.
And, I noticed Vista. I quite like AERO, and I think it makes OS X feel dated. There, I said it.
Jack
on 21 Apr 07“n fairness to Graham, he was talking about startups. It used to be that every startup had to worry about Microsoft coming and eating their lunch. Now they’re much more likely to be worried about Google.”
Did you re-read your own comment before posting?
PG’s startup are all in the so call “Web 2.0” space where MS is not even trying. MS seem to focus on Xbox/business software more than MSN/Live.
MS grow its business back end software from zero to nearly the same size of Windows and Office. for companies who is in that space, say SAP. They are probably pissing their pant when MS is coming at them. I remember there was a talk about MS buying SAP.
It’s sad that people who live in their own bubble can’t see outside of it and PG is living in his Web 2.0 bubble that he can’t see MS is moving up the ladder and going after bigger pie (Enterprise software/Game console).
Web 2.0 is the new hawtness for now but if the History repeat itself. How long before this Web 2.0 groovy train run into the wall like Web 1.0?
Google is still a one trick pony. when is the last time you heard about Google making money other than ad.
RaJ
on 21 Apr 07MS & Y! both are equally good in their own space. MS is strengthening in Enterprise software and games. Yahoo is leading in flickr, yahoo answers, new yahoo mail, Yahoo groups etc., Even Google has several flops. Its ad which is generating revenue.
www.suggestusability.com
victor
on 21 Apr 07coming from south america personally i think leadership is not that much a value in itself. think dictators as leaders.
nintendo is not exactly a leader in its industry, and i still think they have many things to say and to do that are making a change.
i think i’d prefer looking beyond leadership and into innovation. and there both microsoft and yahooo flop monumentally in my book.
David Jones
on 21 Apr 07In fact Microsoft acquired Anders Hjelsberg – creator of Turbo Pascal, Delphi and now lead architect on C#. That’s good enough for me.
George
on 21 Apr 07Microsoft not innovative? Microsoft dead? Are you guys insane? You think Microsoft is only IE, Office, Windows XP/Vista, and MSN?! What about Windows Mobile, XBOX, Visual Studio, Great Plains, Server, and their countless other products being used by millions of people? Microsoft is the backbone and blood supply for millions of companies and millions of consumers… Sure they are less innovative in some spaces, but Microsoft products are getting better and better every year (think Windows 95.)
I’m not pro-Microsoft, but I was sitting here and cracking up at these uninformed comments about how Microsoft is dying because FireFox is better than IE and Google is better than MSN. And Ubuntu can replace Windows, are you kidding me?! :)
Varun Mathur
on 21 Apr 07I agree with you Jason :) This is what I wrote on my blog when this story first appeared:
I think Paul’s point behind this dramatic headline is not that Microsoft is dead, instead it’s that Microsoft sucks and no one cares about them.
The Average Joe User (A-joe) doesn’t care about this stuff. Infact, I don’t think even Google thinks that Microsoft is dead. It’s the Average Joe Geek (A-jug) who thinks, reads, writes and cares about this stuff. So it’s not that Microsoft is really dead, it’s just that to the A-jug community, Microsoft is seemingly a lot less interesting than it was 5 years ago, almost to the point of irrelevance.
I’ve seen the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley a few times, and one of the lines I remember from it is BillG asking SteveB in a club/skating rink: “How do you get to be cool Ballmer ?” :)
To Microsoft: Stir the hornets nest. Create some buzz. Churn out some innovative applications or do something evil (like..break AJAX in IE or something ! :) ). Make A-jugs love you or hate you, but not ignore you. Then you’ll feel better. Being perceived as irrelevant must be painful.
http://www.varunmathur.net/?p=36
solios
on 21 Apr 07I’d rather be Intel. All that Internet and OS has to run on hardware, right? He who controls the kit, controls the universe!
Jeffrey
on 22 Apr 07Yahoo has been acting like it’s dead in the water for years now.
And Paul Graham’s bit of dramatics about Microsoft’s early demise was either an act of sheer ignorance or a test to see if he could increase his view count by catering to the Microsoft-haters out there.
Ben
on 22 Apr 07I think the fact that Yahoo is really only competing with Google is a huge positive for them though. Microsoft is competing on many fronts with many competitors on each front (apple, sony etc etc). Yahoo could even experience a resurgence by no action of their own, say if all the “google is great” people finally realized google is just another company.
Andrew
on 22 Apr 07Microsoft is a company that’s still devastatingly strong in its core market, but that core market is pretty well mature.
Yahoo is a company that’s gone off the rails lately, but has a lot of smart people and business units with considerable long-term potential. Yahoo’s model for turning page views into revenue is fairly broken right now, but they have a number of strong properties that are much more friendly to end users than comparable Google sites.
Bad management is a solvable problem—look at how far HP has come in a couple of years. If they can get new people in charge that can give focus to the business, there’s no reason they can’t start growing again, and keep it going for the long term.
Sebastian
on 22 Apr 07Yes, Yahoo! is probably the leader in page views, but it’s closely followed by MySpace, and: Google is the leader in actually monetizing its page views.
But: Neither of the companies is dead and will be in near future. Yahoo! has lots of money and lots of revenues. They can cut costs very quickly if they want to. (Ok, they’d lose a lot of “innovatability” through that, but nevermind.)
Oh, and Yahoo! Pipes is definitely an innovative application!
And as for who should lead Yahoo! – I don’t think that Semel leads Yahoo!, currently. It’s Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin and Larry Page that lead Yahoo!. And that’s the only real weakness at Yahoo!.
Anonymous Coward
on 22 Apr 07wouldn’t you rather be google =)
Christopher K
on 22 Apr 07Jason, your headline is a comment on the fact that PG sold his own startup to Yahoo, right?
B
on 22 Apr 07I honestly wonder if either Yahoo or Microsoft have approached 37signals about an acquisition. I doubt Yahoo would after this post, but Microsoft buying 37s could have a dramatic impact on MSFT’s image among the inside crowd. It would also give MS some fresh ideas and a team proven to deliver on the web.
silvasonic
on 23 Apr 07if filling out the ‘name’ field was so important to you guys, to the point that you slap a ‘anonymous coward’ on me, why don’t you just validate it?
i guess deserve it, for pressing the submit button before taking a second look at the form, right?
Leo Klein
on 23 Apr 07Frankly, I’m happy just being ‘Leo Klein’.
But if I had to choose, I’d be Yahoo—first because it’s hard for me to forget the old M$, and second, because whatever you think of them, Yahoo does far more interesting things than MS ever did online.
Jen
on 23 Apr 07A few months back The Economist took a look at several companies in the no. 2 or no.3 spot in their categories. My take-away was that it’s actually not a bad place to be at all – less pressure and volatility of being out in front. They went on to discuss the mad psychology of striving for market leadership when it isn’t necessary. I’m not doing the article justice. Bugger, their site is pword protected as well.
Alan
on 23 Apr 07But would you rather be Microsoft or Google?
Martin Gittins
on 23 Apr 07Good call Jen. As I recall the article talked about Nintendo being in a better position than Sony and Microsoft in the games console market – two Goliath’s launching over-hyped, over-specced, over-priced products and fighting each other for marketing share. Nintendo decided not to play their game and instead chose to innovate and launch a low-cost machine, focus on fun and playability, that opens up new markets.
Being number 2 or 3 makes it easier to innovate be daring and try new things – number one is all about protecting your position. That’s why they’re called 800-pound gorillas – the analogy from the animal kingdom is entirely apt. Being the Alpha male Silverback is not the time to explore the forest.
JF
on 23 Apr 07There’s definitely real value in being 2 or 3 as long as you are content with that position.
sharaf
on 23 Apr 07I think Yahoo will be bought by Comcast.
JFC
on 23 Apr 07I am at the largest company in my industry and we are not allowed to get anything from apple. Its not a matter of business unit preference and you can get what you want. Orders are rejected at procurement for Macs. The folks who say the world is changing becasue they have not used a Microsoft product have a limited world view.
I am just trying to communicate the degree of Windows marketshare in the large non-SF markets. Someone wrote about Windows entrenchment and I will back that and amplify it. Most large companies I am aware of the Windows vs Mac marketshare is 99%. At this company it is 100%. Hundreds of thousands of desktops and laptops.
I am not saying I would not like to use a Mac. I am just trying to point out the reality of the marketplace.
Michelle
on 23 Apr 07I’d rather be any other company than one without integrity and ethical business practices.
Tony
on 23 Apr 07As a side note, I just read an article that microsoft is going to be licensing windows to developing countries at $3.00 (yes three dollars) a copy! There’s two sides to this…
1) first, Bill Gates isn’t all that evil and does want to have technology help benefit the world
2) The are infact worried about ubuntu and other open-source software grabbing a foothold in these markets. See: http://youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ
Ugur Gundogmus
on 23 Apr 07I found this today:
http://www.millwardbrown.com/Sites/optimor/Media/Pdfs/en/BrandZ/BrandZ-2007-RankingReport.pdf
Both MS and Yahoo are losing ground.
Ed
on 23 Apr 07I was a life time Microsoft fan, user and developer until a couple of years ago. Not any more. Their products and their approaches are sooo HEAVY. The world is going toward light and simple. If MS doesn’t adjust, they will eventually begin burning their $40B and things will not be good in Redmond.
ConanRay
on 24 Apr 07‘Microsoft is Dead’ is a strange comment for a company struggling badly to stay alive. They had everything to success and just failed. So, who’s fault? Who cares? The king is dead! Long Live to the King… and it might not be Yahoo!
Marc
on 24 Apr 07While I agree with everything you said, Microsoft is the LAST thing I want to be. Yahoo simply needs new people at the top, I don’t think the company as a whole is broken beyond repair. Microsoft on the other hand, I’d argue nearly their entire infrastructure is broken. Their entire corporate culture is working towards their eventual demise.
Microsoft is a behemoth. I still believe that Yahoo has the ability to become agile again.
B
on 24 Apr 07I’d argue nearly their entire infrastructure is broken
Let’s hear the argument then.
bhorst
on 24 Apr 07Glad to see a few posters agree with me—I would not want to work for a company with the lack of ethics and willingness to break the law around the world that Microsoft displays.
Corporate arrogance is one thing, but MS goes so far beyond that to the point it seems to think it is not required to follow the law, that countries and cultures are pawns it can shove around at its whim.
No wonder so many European and developing nations are hastening away from Microsoft’s products and adopting ODF, Ubuntu, OpenOffice, and open source at every opportunity! Nobody wants to be bullied, and lots of ethical people don’t want to work for a bully either.
This discussion is closed.