Microsoft + Yahoo = Big Mess?

Everyone on the sideline seems to be very excited about possible Yahoo and Microsoft merger, but I’m not so sure it’s going to turn out pretty. Microsoft has a history of making acquisitions, and few comes to mind of anywhere close to a success. The exception being Bungie, and only because Microsoft left them alone.

For example, in 1997 Microsoft acquired Vxtreme Inc for their web theater technology with $75 million. What web theater?

With the help of Josh Philips from WindowsConnected.com we’ve compiled a list of existing Yahoo services and matched it with existing Microsoft offerings. It’s an astounding number of overlaps. Of course there’s many more services from Microsoft without Yahoo equivalents (ex. Office Live).

Now imagine for each and every one of these you have to make a decision - to keep it as is, integrate Yahoo’s into Microsoft’s, integrate Microsoft’s into Yahoo’s or even come up with a new hybrid. Simple branding aside, I think the developers are going to have to work quite a few late nights to integrate what I believe are two monolithic systems together.

Whatever they do, they better not ruin Flickr.

Service	Yahoo Equivelent	Microsoft Equivelent
Content Portals	Yahoo.com	Msn.com
Country-specific Content Portals	ex. Yahoo7.com.au	ex. Ninemsn.com
Personal Homepage	My Yahoo!	Live.com
Casual gaming	Yahoo Games	MSN Games
Mapping	Yahoo Maps	Live Maps
Instant Messenger	Yahoo Messenger	Live Messenger
Mail	Yahoo Mail	Live Hotmail
Community Help Service	Ask Yahoo!	Live Q&A
Photo Sharing	Flickr	Live Spaces
Blogging	360°	Live Spaces
Widgets	Yahoo Widgets	Windows Sidebar
Search Advertising	Yahoo Search Marketing	Microsoft adCenter
Mobile	Yahoo Mobile	Live Mobile
Web Development	Yahoo Developer Network	Dev.Live.com
Web Mashups	Yahoo Pipes	Popfly
Website Services	Yahoo Small Business
Geocities
Social Events	upcoming.org
Social Bookmarking	del.icio.us	(Advertising deal with Digg)
eCommerce	alibaba
Music Service	Y! Music/MusicMatch	Zune Marketplace, MSN Music
Music Software	Music Jukebox	Windows Media Player

Did I miss anything? Please help me correct it.

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