Microsoft and Yahoo Reach Agreement on Search | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft and Yahoo Reach Agreement on Search

nytimes.com

40 pointshelloworld24 comments

Here is the article for those that don't want to hunt down a login:

Microsoft Corporation and Yahoo announced on Wednesday that they had agreed to collaborate on Internet search and online advertising, a deal that should create a more formidable to Google Inc.

In a statement, the companies said that Microsoft will now power Yahoo search while Yahoo will become the relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.

Under the deal, Microsoft will get a 10-year license for Yahoo’s “core search technologies,” and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo search technologies into its existing search platforms;

Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search, the companies said in a statement.

Probably a good deal for both companies. Microsoft wasn't going to organically grow their search platform fast enough without a marketshare buy. Yahoo can focus on the other services they own and maybe figure out how to make them more a more cohesive offering. There was way too much redundancy between the two companies for a straight buyout to ever make sense. I don't think Google will have much to worry about either way. People are set in their ways. A competitor that as "just as good" isn't enough. Google's biggest competitive burden is simply not screwing up.

I agree-looks mutually beneficial. Yahoo's strength hasn't been search for a long time and MS is trying to break into that market. Sounds like MS gets more traffic to search and Yahoo gets more traffic to sites where they actually have strength (e.g. yahoo finance, yahoo sports, etc).

If I've learned anything about MS over the years it's that they don't break new ground very well but they do a helluva job coming in after the fact and muscling their way up (eg Windows, Xbox, now search...)

I guess this is a good deal. Bing is at least as good as Yahoo search, if not better. If MS had bought yahoo last year, they may not have released bing at all. Now they can merge the strengths of both bing and yahoo search, and hopefully come up with a strong contender to G. Overall this is good for users.

EDIT: it is also better than last year's failed deal because Yahoo can still stay alive, instead of being swallowed by MS completely.

Read: MS can't get traction, Yahoo devolved their homepage away from usability years ago and now neither of them is strong enough to be a player by themselves.

Really? To me, it seems like Microsoft finally has a compelling search product and they're trying to ramp up usage as much as possible. Nothing indicates that Bing "can't get traction".

well, if you compare the total combined traffic that was going to MSN search with what bing is receiving right now all that it was to date was a big 302 operation. The yahoo deal makes them a real contender. At least they won't be able to switch it off so easily. Microsoft has a bit of a history launching stuff with great fanfare only to quietly retire it a couple of years later.

search.msn.com , msn homepage search all these used to be a good bit of traffic, they now redirect to bing.

It makes good sense for them to get yahoo on board, it makes it harder to sell yahoo to some third party and they get a bunch of traffic. For yahoo it is mostly about cutting costs and not having to compete with both microsoft and google at the same time.

EDIT: I just noticed this, even lots of the regular text links on the msn homepage now redirect to bing.com, that's simple statistics inflation. For instance check the hot topics section on http://www.msn.com/

Statistics inflation? Please. Microsoft is simply linking popular searches into their own search engine from one of their primary properties. I see no issues here.

Is Google Trends 'search inflation' too? Or what about the popular topics links on the home page of Twitter.com?

That space used to be used for links to articles, not for links to search results on msn search. That was just a sample, check how many links on the msn homepage pretend to be some kind of article but actually link to bing search results.

I guess my point is that MS hasn't been able to make much of a dent in Google's hold on search, working on it pretty hard for the last few years.

Rome wasn't built in a day. The big difference this time around is that -people like Bing-. You'll have to give Microsoft more than two months to put a dent in Google, but I'm positive they will.

MS has barely been working on defeating Google in the last few years. I think the last attempt was Live.com, when did that launch?

I believe the main issue that prevented MS/Yahoo! from defeating Google early on was their reliance on the 'portal' aspects of their sites. Not wanting to lose the revenue from all these complimentary network sites they cluttered their home pages, and focus which kept Google in the position as the lean-mean/no-nonsense search option.

Live.com was an attempt to rectify that, but it was too late to matter.

Nothing indicates that it will gain traction.

Their logic is two substandard search technologies and systems combined will beat google?

If the core essence of both technologies were magically complementary, then perhaps.

But trying to beat a company, google, known for its simplicity by combining two known for their complexity seems a somewhat poor strategy.

> Their logic is two substandard search technologies and systems combined will beat google?

IIRC, Fake Steve Jobs described it as taking the number two and number three runners in a race and having them try to beat number one by running three-legged.

It was one of those similes that had the tears of laughter coursing down my cheeks as I nodded in complete agreement with the expected result.

neither MS nor Yahoo can beat Google on their own. That is sure. so what is wrong in them trying together? there is at least a chance, however small it is.

its more like merging the strengths of second and third contestants, helping the resultant runner run faster than making a three legged runner.

I agree that when #2 and #3 pool their efforts the goal is to merge their strengths. But all too often the result is to merge their weaknesses as infighting, politics, and the inevitable friction of trying to get two disparate cultures working together smoothly takes over.

Their logic is that it's easier to sell advertisers a single search advertising platform with 10% of the market than two competing advertising platforms with 5% of the market, especially when combined with the savings by avoiding the costs of duplicating each others search and advertising functionality.

and here is the press release, right from "the horse's mouth":

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2009/jul09/07-29rel...

Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, said in an interview that Ms. Bartz had driven a hard bargain. “Look,” he said, "she got 88 percent of the revenue and none of the cost.”

I can't help but read this like Ballmer's trying not to bust out laughing while he's saying it. Is it possible to say something like this at all sincerely?

A sad day for whatever remnants of Inktomi, AltaVista, FAST (the part bought by Overture in 2003, not the part bought by Microsoft in 2008), and Overture still exist inside Yahoo.

Dinosaurs mating.

Perhaps, but one result of dinosaurs mating was this new thing called a "mammal" that ended up working out pretty well...

I'm asking myself what will search look like in 10 years ? I think the MSFT vs GOOGLE battle is going to get ugly soon. So MSFT will license Yahoo Search Technology (?????), I'm not sure what that means , sounds like an exchange of $$$$.

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