Where To Now?

Posted on May 10, 2008

Microsoft will just build their own search and ad business, Gates says, since they withdrew the $47.5 billion offer for Yahoo.

Bill says all they need to do is hire great engineers and surprise people at how well they can compete, even with Google’s lead. Let’s see now. If he paid those engineers $150K a year (these are new hires he’s talking about after all), then he could put 10,000 on the payroll for only $1.5 billion a year. If he could even find that many qualified candidates, looks like they could catch up quickly for minimal cost.

So why reach out and spend nearly 50 billion when you can just accomplish your goals yourself with a ‘minimal’ investment? Because he can’t and he knows it. That’s just rhetoric to say we can do it ourselves. But hey, you’ve got to say something.

In reality, it’s apparent that Microsoft will still have to go and purchase their way to get better at online money-making. If there is no additional attempt at Yahoo, then they will have to make multiple purchases going forward to get enough pieces together to make any inroads toward catching Yahoo and Google.