MicroHoo – the term lots of bloggers are using to describe the merging of Microsoft and Yahoo is in the news again. I’ve avoided talking about this takeover bid right from the beginning because I wanted to see how it would roll out. In all of the jabbering there seems to be an element missing or at least not getting the coverage it deserves. What impact would this have on the customers of each company?

There has been lots of talk about such things as shareholder value – Yahoo’s would go up, Microsoft’s would go down according to some market analysts. Workplace cultures are different at each company so there would be clashes. The value to Microsoft would be a billion dollar online advertising platform. Microsoft would be buying themselves a seat (or lots of them) on the Web 2.0 bus. Yahoo would receive benefit of senior management direction and vision from Microsoft . . . and the list goes on. But nowhere (that I could find in any case and certainly not in the daily news) was there any mention of what value MicroHoo would deliver to their customers.

Businesses exist because of their customers. They thrive by giving customers what they want and whither and die by not delivering what their customers need in the way of goods and services. As a customer of both companies (I’ve been a Yahooligan for longer than I can remember!) I ask a simple question – what’s in it for me?

Maybe it’s a good thing they didn’t merge since they both seemed to be focused on things other than their customer base.

Dean