[img src="" caption="" credit="" alt=""]According to WSJ, Time Warner and Yahoo are seriously considering going together against Microsoft's (hostile or unsolicited, whichever you prefer) takeover bid. Reportedly, the deal would include Yahoo acquiring Time Warner's property AOL with Time taking a large minority stake in a new, combined company.
This, as well as all possible implications of any deal that could place in this love rectangle (Google-Microsoft-Yahoo-AOL) has been widely discussed in the past. So, let's step back for a second and look at these two companies, Yahoo and AOL.
I don't know about you, but I see two behemoths with some good ideas buried underneath a mountain corporate kipple, and a whole lot of inefficiency and inertia in both. Having had the unpleasant experience of working in a big corporation, I've acquired an enormous distaste for it, as I've often felt that the best way to bring it to the path of progress is burning it down and building it up from scratch. I seriously doubt that the result of a AOL-Yahoo merger would do everything it takes to step up to Google's level; it's probably a practical impossibility and would require firing the half of the people that work there. Thus, I think that an AOL-Yahoo merger is just another step towards impending doom.