Notes from the conference call this morning:
- Press release: "Transaction valued at approximately $44.6 billion in cash and stock; provides 62 percent premium to current trading price for Yahoo! shareholders; combined entity to create a more competitive company, providing superior value to shareholders, better choice and innovation for customers and partners"
- Updated: Forgot one thing Microsoft also picks up that is interesting: Yahoo! Pipes and Yahoo! Mash.
Benefit #1: Yahoo! helps Microsoft when it comes to search/advertising.
Solid business boost for Microsoft without doubt.
Benefit #2: Microsoft becomes a stronger social media player
Through Flickr and del.ico.us, Microsoft gains additional assets that help with its community-building and social networking efforts across consumer segments. Also, Microsoft's ability to leverage the install base of people using Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger is also compelling.
Benefit #3: Infrastructure matters. Microsoft's cloud just got bigger.
Data centers are not cheap - economies of scale kick in.
Benefit #4: Combining Talent pools.
Yahoo! has some brilliant people. While not every idea played out effectively - the creativity of Yahoo's employees (including those over at Zimbra) are clearly additive to where Microsoft wants to go concerning social media, collaboration, etc.
Benefit #5: Derivative impacts to the enterprise
Yahoo! recently acquired Zimbra. Zimbra has one of the most modern platforms for enterprise messaging (in terms of user experience, architecture). Zimbra has made inroads in some market segments (e.g., educational institutions). While some platform components may not fit cleanly (those based on Java and XMPP), there are synergies overall with what Microsoft is delivering re: Office Live Workspace. I'm sure the Exchange team would love to chat with its Zimbra counterparts on what works and lesson's learned. In fact, I think the user experience around Zimbra Collaboration Suite is so good that the Office and SharePoint teams would benefit from such insight. Also, it would be interesting to explore the possibility of Microsoft leveraging del.ico.us as its strategic tag/bookmark component within SharePoint as well as Office Live efforts. Microsoft also picks up some interesting mashup tools and social networking technologies: Pipes and Mash.
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