Adieu Yahoo! Microsoft ready for two-horse fight with Google

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says his company has drawn a line in the sand and is done trying to do a deal to acquire Yahoo! any time soon. And he also believes the future fight to own the search and online advertising business is a two-horse race that Yahoo! does not figure in.

“It didn’t work out, fine, we’re done, we can move on,” Ballmer said at an annual analyst meeting. “Does that mean nobody will ever talk to anybody again? I suspect the answer to that is also no. It’s a long time and a big world, but we are moving on.”

Personally I believe Microsoft will be better off without Yahoo! in the long-run. For a start, acquiring Yahoo! would have raised all kinds of questions about what to do with the sorry Open Source projects the company is currently actively supporting through various means. Dropping support for these projects may not be as simple as one would hope if the technologies play a key role in the services Yahoo! offers its dwindling numbers of users.

Let Yahoo! figure out what to do with it’s Open Source initiatives while their market share continues to dwindle in size.

Microsoft has enough quality engineers and innovators to take the fight to Google on its own. It doesn’t need to pay top dollar for the right to try and rescue a struggling internet brand like Yahoo!

I am pleased and excited to see the following quote attributed to Ballmer at the same analysts meeting: “In the search business, let’s face it, this is not about Yahoo. This is a two-horse race, it’s Microsoft and it’s Google.”

Ballmer! gets! it! at! last!

I look forward to bidding Yahoo! adieu in due course.