Microsoft today at long last got a deal done with Yahoo! to partner on Search. This is the piece that has been most needed by Microsoft in its ongoing war with Google. Yahoo! has lost relevance on the Internet and needed a partner to take on the Google goliath (which as detailed earlier on Wealth-Ed is arrogant and deserves to be knocked down). Microsoft will benefit and now becomes a more formidable opponent with almost 30% share in Search.
Bing, the new Internet Browser, was announced a few months ago and Windows OS7 is on the horizon for Microsoft, so don’t write this computing pioneer off. The details of the partnership are not yet fully understood, but here is an early report from CNBC:
“Microsoft is not expected to pay an upfront fee to Yahoo , and the focus of the deal is on sharing revenue between the two companies.
Under the expected deal, Microsoft’s new Bing search engine will power Yahoo’s searches, according to Advertising Age, while Yahoo will handle the advertising sales, using Microsoft technology.
The deal should give Bing a giant boost in competing with Google’s search engine. Google’s search engine dominates the marketplace with 65 percent of U.S. Internet searches, according to figures provided by research firm ComScore. Last month, Microsoft had only 8.4 percent of the market and Yahoo 19.6 percent.
There is a chance a deal combining the powers of the second and third-ranked search engine companies would be blocked by antitrust regulators. Google and Yahoo dropped plans for an advertising partnership last year under opposition from the U.S. Department of Justice.”
All of this should hurt Google and help Microsoft as will be seen in the stock value. I am a buyer of MSFT at this level and have recently doubled down by stake. $30 a share is possible by year end based on new growth prospects, existing market dominance in Office software suite and its tremendous cash hoard of $30B (which not so incidentally, is untouched by this deal, which at one time to purchase Yahoo! would have cost MSFT $47B).
The 10-year deal announced Wednesday gives Microsoft access to the Internet’s second-largest search engine audience, beefing up the software maker’s arsenal as it tries to better confront Google, which is by far the leader in online search and advertising.
Microsoft didn’t have to give Yahoo an upfront payment to make it happen, as many Yahoo investors had been counting on ever since Microsoft dangled $1 billion last summer in an attempt to forge a search partnership then.
Google tried to stop Yahoo from falling into Microsoft’s camp. Last year it formed its own proposed search advertising deal with Yahoo, only to be forced to retreat from that alliance after U.S. antitrust officials threatened to sue.
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Tags: Microsoft