Abbie, he's probably like me, an old school Unix computer guy whose worst nightmare would be to throw away his wonderful Unix tools, which he has used for decades, and replace them with Windows mumbo-jumbo, which always makes things about 10x more complex than they need to be.

Yahoo has always been about straightforwardly bringing in the content, in a way that's easy to work with and doesn't require a lot of complex manipulation on the part of the user. Microsoft has always been about making things complex, elaborate but not any more effective than Yahoo's simplistic approach. Yahoo has probably moved too slowly to embrace more modern ways of working, while Microsoft's main point is to force people to use Internet Explorer as their main web browser.

In a takeover, Microsoft will get what it wants. It will rewrite every line of Yahoo code in the Windows Live! style, and/or import all the Yahoo! data into the Windows Live! system and suddenly double Windows Live! market share overnight.

But will the customers go for it? Will they stick with Windows Live! or move elsewhere. It seems to me that they are likely to move elsewhere if they are asked to transfer to Live. After all, most of them have already considered and rejected Hotmail.

It seems likely that most of Yahoo's technical employees will abruptly disappear. They are not even qualified for the new jobs, which will involve developing in a completely different style and computing platform that they have learned to loathe pretty much since the advent of Windows 3.1.

It also seems likely that Google(tm) will throw out the welcome mat. This will mean that, effectively, Microsoft will pay $45 billion for employees and infrastructure, only to see the employees walking straight out the door. Google then gets them for free! Nice move, Microsoft. You only helped your biggest competitor get bigger.

In conclusion, then, Microsoft is buying Yahoo for the Internet-savvy attitudes of its employees, who will soon depart, and for the customers they now have, who will soon leave.

Who the heck thought this was a good idea?

D