Microsoft's Online Stumble Has Ripple Effects for Yahoo

That guy sitting on the left is so twitchy that it really detracts from his presentation.

As Microsoft CEO, Bill Gates had two jobs: Manage the people at the top and to train his successor. It appears as though he only partially succeeded at both of these duties. Steve Ballmer regularly characterizes many of his decisions as strategic. In fact, they are tactical decisions that probably someone else should be making.

Can Carl Iachn put Steve Ballmer on Yahoho's board? It they videotaped the board meetings they could probably sell them as entertainment and make lots of money for their investors!

Can Carl Iachn put Steve Ballmer on Yahoho's board? It they videotaped the board meetings they could probably sell them as entertainment and make lots of money for their investors!

The red haired guy in the video is a meth head.

The guy on the left was just getting into character. He was doing a story on MS.

isnt that henry blodget ? why do u say "that guy" ?

make the deal,you all know it is going to happen and soon.this could turn the entire tech. sector around,after it is completed watch the scramble

MS is finally being seen for what they really are. A innovativeless (is that a word) company that has lost its ability to steal another company's products (Lotus 123, WordPerfect, DB2...) and repackage them as MS innovations. Gates is a marketing genius (e.g. monopolist) but never created anything useful. He even purchased MSDOS for $50,000! I await the day when I'm never forced to use another defective MS product or software. I can only wonder what cool and useful products we would have available if MS had not monopolized the IT industry the last 20 years.

Who wants to buy my Yahoo! shares @ 30?

buy now

Don S. is so right. Gates was the strategist. And a brilliant one at that. Ballmer never was and never will be a strategist. He is a warrior/tactician. To be sure, a formidable force if focused. A thorny question for the post-Gates Microsoft is who will provide the necessary strategy and focus? There are still tons of smart people at Microsoft, but with the departures over the last decade of people like Paul Maritz, Nathan Myhrvold, and now Kevin Johnson, there is no one left that really has the stature, savvy, and guts to stand up to Steve and be the strategic force in the company that Gates was. For better or worse, it's Ballmer's show now.

What MSFT doesn't understand is it is about brand. I think MSFT has the technology, but people hate the brand. IE is installed on 90% of the computer worldwide with msn.com as the default, but people prefer to use Google, Yahoo and AOL for search. People do not like the brand and that's why they need Yahoo.

Who else lost their behind thinking this deal would go through? These idiots should be put up for some type of award. This is a harbinger of things to come for Steve "my head really is a cue ball" Ballmer. He is inept, and without Bill Gates backing, would be selling shoe polish or screaming bingo numbers in a psych hosptial. I could have made a fortune, I needed a fortune, instead I've lost a fortune. Keep buying those calls, the deal will go through...Say this mantra as you blow your brains out...

Who else lost their behind thinking this deal would go through? These idiots should be put up for some type of award. This is a harbinger of things to come for Steve "my head really is a cue ball" Ballmer. He is inept, and without Bill Gates backing, would be selling shoe polish or screaming bingo numbers in a psych hosptial. I could have made a fortune, I needed a fortune, instead I've lost a fortune. Keep buying those calls, the deal will go through...Say this mantra as you blow your brains out...

Well, peprd01, If you play with the big dogs, assume they're going to bite you in the rear or something more tender, or you're far better off going off into your little dog house and hiding, because in the real world of big business (heck, any business) the only sure thing are the only two sure things that are true in all cases: death and taxes! If you can't pay the time (risk your money and possibly lose it all), don't do the crime (commit it to something you don't understand and can't hope to control). I suppose you also have a house mortgage you can't pay because you counted on the value going up, up, up into the stratosphere, and then selling it out before the ARM cost that and a leg, too, and now you expect and believe you should be bailed out at other taxpayer's expense. Personally, I'm convinced from my life's experience that the attempt at a bailout will only really hurt the ones it is supposed to help in the long-term, because it'll only delay the hitting of the brick wall and the splat their patterns have already set them up for: taking more risk for the upside than they could afford on the downside. That, and with the government being there to fund it with taxpayer's money, that'll cause inflation for all of us, and devalue the currency around the world, not to mention sow seeds of distrust in the US for what an investment and a contract really means.