Y+M

By | February 1, 2008

Microsoft . . . Microsoft, why not spend 500M in the next couple of years, next to nothing for you, on learning how to create real new businesses and approaches, to create value? In other words, have the insight and courage to reprogram your DNA.

By acquiring Yahoo, you think you’re buying an advertising network with some real color to it that will allow you to go head to head with Google. We can just see the smiles: “It’s just business Yahoo . . . we’ve got you now Google . . . we just keep comin’ and comin’ and comin’.”

But, from out here, it looks like the move of a desperate company – a company that doesn’t know how to create anything new – and is willing to make a major bet on another company that used to know how to create something new.

If the world shifts in 2010 to a new mode of advertising (and productivity/collaboration), call it people-driven advertising, you’re going to be way, way behind the curve because of this deal. No one wants the ads you deliver in Facebook and no one wants “live” Office today – think how they’re going to feel in 2010.

My recommendation: spend some of that money on yourself. Change internally. Then, make something. In the end, you’re going to have to do that anyway.

Update:

It’s a shallow strategy, Microsoft.

“With the Yahoo bid, analysts say, Microsoft is trying to buy a big enough share of the market to be a credible alternative to Google with online advertisers.”

Shallow and tired.