HA HA - have to laugh at The Registers headline on this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02...ids_for_yahoo/
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HA HA - have to laugh at The Registers headline on this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02...ids_for_yahoo/
Hrum, that means Microsoft is skint now, yes?
If they are, they could start charging for service packs I suppose - just like Apple !! :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoff
Hmm zimbra is owned by Yahoo. I guess that spell the end for the exchange competition
And quite possibly a shiny new upgrade to various bits of exchange. :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by CyberNerd
I would hardly call zimbra serious 'competition' to exchange. Although i suppose zimbra is one aspect of various overlapping products between the two companies, the most obvious being the competing internet portal and webmail products.Quote:
Originally Posted by CyberNerd
not likely, Zimbra is based entirely on *nix technology, it directly competes with Active Directory, Windows Server and Exchange. MS would love to see zimbra dead because it more than they do at a fraction of hte cost. Now it looks like they have the chance
not in userbase, but it certainly is in functionalityQuote:
I would hardly call zimbra serious 'competition' to exchange.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CyberNerd
I appreciate it's an alternative product set to windows server and exchange, but is it competing in terms of market share ?, if market share of a product such as zimbra can be measured effectively. I would say in enteprise messaging ibm's lotus/domino is the only product Microsoft needs to concern itself with at the moment. Although there is a gap in the market for a lower cost, full featured alternative to domino and exchange, is zimbra the product that is taking market share from the big two in a big way ? Or is it a product with the potential to do that ?
I had a dig about and found this cnet blog post which makes an interesting read in light of the Exchange vs Zimbra discussion.
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9798880-16.html
It is (was) in the process of doing just that. Yahoo paid $350M for zimbra a few months ago, prior to the acquisition zimbra had 18million paid users (comcast accounted for 12Million in may 2007) I guess the number of paid users must be in the 20M mark ish and about 10,000 developers/admins , with more OSS users. Zimbra has been winning lots of awards. but it's small fry in terms of Yahoo's overall worth.Quote:
Although there is a gap in the market for a lower cost, full featured alternative to domino and exchange, is zimbra the product that is taking market share from the big two in a big way ? Or is it a product with the potential to do that ?
The article that Geoff's linked compares the old version 4 of zimbra vs exchange 2007. I can see that MS might be worried, at least with a takeover MS don't need to be innovative.
So, Hotmail will sink Yahoo Mail, MSN will do away with Yahoo's chat thingy and Live Search will replace Yahoo; add to that MS getting Flickr our of the deal (plus the moves they keep making for Facebook) and you get yourself one mighty big company. It just amazes me that while MS are being hauled over the coals for one allegedly unfair act of market dominance, they are able to go and do this too.
Microsoft would argue that google are the dominant force, and will continue to be the dominant force in this space post merger/acquisition. And I would say i have to agree, yahoo's core products are struggling to keep up and remain relevant. They've launched one or two new services that have bellyflopped, and tbh, outside further activity in acquisitons it's difficult to see where they were going to turn things around. This is probably just the shot the company needs, leaving aside the anti-competitive issues, the fact google will still have the advantage in terms of search and advertising revenue means this takeover hardly reflects market dominance.Quote:
Originally Posted by NickJones
Microsoft will have a big job on their hands assimilating yahoo, streamlining and rationalising products and deciding on product direction. MS may have been better off with several smaller targeted acquistions. google are big enough to respond in the acquisitions market, they've proven in the past they're willing to pay to retain market advantage.
Also the takeover has to be approved by the relevant EU and US agencies.
News of the offer has made it onto the bbc website;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7222114.stm
LOL at the bit about google holding the shotgun. Also, a 62% premium on the share price is madness. $44bn did sound a far too generous valuation of yahoos stock at this time, guess all those years of google outwitting microsoft has finally done Bill's head in, i think he wants to fire one last shot across the bows instead of heading meekly into retirement. Shame for MS it probably won't have the desired effect.