There have been extensive grumblings up and down West Coast USA as of late, concerning Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo and the suspected culture clash that would result from a merger of the two corporations. Yahoo employees in particular fear the loss of an entrepreneurial atmosphere in Sunnyvale. Tech pundit and blogger Robert Scoble, speaking on a recent episode of the TWiT pocast, has the sense that a combination of the two forces would be messy and would be a job for their respective management teams to sort out for at least a year following the final handshake by their CEOs, Jerry Yang and Steve Ballmer.
I too can attest to forecasting a long, and sometimes painful transition period for Microsoft and Yahoo if the deal were to be completed. The people at Yahoo operate in a different fashion than those at Microsoft, for sure. There most definitely will be noticeable discontent and mutinous activity happening in both California and Washington states if things do proceed.
Yet, I also have to give Microsoft at least some benefit of the doubt here. Because believe it or not, Microsoft, despite its proclivity for playing a grumpy, graying (and let’s not forget domineering) technology giant, has a history of knowing when to take a mostly-hands-off, non-overbearing role in relation to its businesses, whether they be purely in-house developments or acquisitions. A number of the company’s research efforts, for example, are given a substantial amount of slack by the execs in Redmond. Yes, it’s true, Gates and Ballmer have had a history of granting a rather commendable level of autonomy to various parts of the corporate structure.
Therefore, I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t be too much of a leap to think Microsoft would play a reserved role as the new parent of a well-established $44-billion-plus Web giant.
Microsoft’s decision makers after all aren’t window dressing. (Bad analogy?) They’re capable of thinking extensively of corporate strategy and determining how best to do business in a cutthroat industry. (Nevermind the fact that Microsoft is itself responsible for brewing much of that gruesome industrial intensity.)
So, please allow me to say this one bit line: If anyone is to buy Yahoo, and give it another go at superstardom through some no-holds-barred maneuvering at the managerial level, I would venture to name Microsoft as the best candidate - among the list of potential partners - for the job.
We all know Yahoo has the user numbers to make a [bleeping] massive amount of money. Yahoo’s problem is that it is not doing what’s necessary to get to that higher place. It’s business is so scattered, and long-standing corporate loyalties are so established and so intensely represented in its present methodology that it seems only an outside influence right the ship back to where it dreams to be.
Of course, Microsoft isn’t making this move solely to give Yahoo a boost. Microsoft certainly intends to make money on the acquisition. A lot of it. But that doesn’t discount the outstanding truth that Yahoo requires an intervention, lest it continue on the unimpressive trend it has charted the last few years.