The collapse of the Google deal on Nov. 5 had to be the last straw. Yang and the company he co-founded were without an ally, and his bum's rush was all but assured. But was Google ever a real ally? That is, was Yang suckered from the get-go?
Without Google in Yahoo!'s corner, Yang would never have been bold enough to try and squeeze an extra $4 per share out of Microsoft. By all accounts, he genuinely believed that it was a win-win situation: either he would exact a premium from Microsoft or he would team up with Google, which would sell ads against the world's most-visited website and revive its fortunes. How could Yahoo! lose?
But the only real winner here is and always was Google. (It remains to be seen whether Microsoft will strike a deal with the next Yahoo! in Chief.) While I'm not suggesting that Google CEO Eric Schmidt was dissembling when he said in March that he was concerned about a Microsoft-Yahoo! deal, and I'm sure his motives were pure when he tried to broker his own deal to partner with Yahoo!, let's not forget that Google was once more competitive with Yahoo! than it was with Microsoft. That is, Google's search engine and subsequent targeted-ad strategy succeeded at Yahoo!'s expense. Yahoo! was always the enemy.
Can you imagine how Yang felt when Google decided to abandon the proposed partnership earlier this month? What a kick in the head.
Haha, intéressante vision des choses
