There have been rumors, albiet weak rumors, that Apple may be considering buying Yahoo. One of these rumors teams up Newscorp with Apple in the purchase. Some of the reasons given for the reason for Apple to want Yahoo include the following. Apple could use Yahoo to expand the .Mac vision which Apple has yet to see take off. Apple would have an automatic inroad into China for marketing all of its products. And the idea that Apple feels it could fix the search engine business.
Personally, I don't give this idea any credence based on how Apple operates in the past. They are the new product dreamers. Yahoo seems to be a hodgepodge of almost good online products. It would take a super organizer to sort through the Yahoo mess and find what is of value and what is a wasted effort. Apple doesn't fix other peoples messes. They start from scratch and fix things from the ground up.
Now for the contrarian view. How would Apple benefit from having Yahoo? They have a large customer base, which may not be as big as Google but is still quite large. So if Apple did buy Yahoo, would they just rewrite how the company operates into the Apple way of doing business? Simplifying their core business to a handful of functions. This may be plausible, but can Apple even be in the running to buy Yahoo if the deep pockets of MS are there to easily outbid Apple. But buyouts are not just the highest bidder. Yahoo stockholders may feel that in the long run, Apple would generate more money for Yahoo than the initial jump if MS buys them. And what would this do to the relationship with Google?
It is an interesting proposition, which if Apple jumps into would change the type of company they are once again.
2 comments:
It just seems so out of the stream of where Apple has been headed. Just like you said, they create great hardware enabled by the best software in the business. I remember Jobs saying, after the introduction of the iPod, that they felt they could contribute their expertise into a particular area where they see an opportunity. Is Yahoo a really good 'opportunity'? I think you're correct in saying the level of resources necessary to change Yahoo's direction would be massive to say the least. I've said before that I keep Yahoo around just because I have some history with their email service and they offer unlimited email storage - hardly the reason I am a .Mac subscriber. I still consider .Mac to be a high value service IF one uses the products and services available - then one can do things that other services do offer, but with Apple-like ease and quality. With Yahoo, it seems more like a bunch of mediocre services tied together - very un-Apple. I give that kind of acquisition a 0.1% chance of happening. (Boy would I be stunned if it actually happened!)
Isn't that about the same odds as being hit by a bus today? I agree that the chance of it is probably low. I was intrigued by the idea of Newscorp being involved. This would make more sense. Then all of the risk would not be on Apple. Newscorp could provide content while Apple refines the guts of Yahoo. This seems possible. But then I saw that Newscorp denied the rumor. Of course they can always undeny it later. We will have to wait and see.
Post a Comment