When everyone left their offices on Friday Microsoft was mulling over their next move in their bid to buy Yahoo. Everyone returned to their offices Monday morning to find that the tug-of-war was over: No deal. Microsoft decided it wasn’t worth the fight after all. Yahoo and its assets are safe for now. Zimbra is still alive and open. The public can breathe a sigh of relief. For now.
I won’t rehash the details of events during the last three months. It is replayed ad nauseum all over the net. This would become just one more redundant article on the topic. But it is important to discuss.
The question is, what does this failed attempt to purchase Yahoo mean for the company? What does it mean for Microsoft and Steve Ballmer, who overnight seems to have lost some virility as the CEO of the world’s largest and most powerful software company on the planet? What does this mean for the open source community? What does this mean for Google? Most of all, what does this mean for consumers?
No doubt the speculation will continue for the days and weeks to come, but one thing is becoming clear, while the other characters in this story dodged a bullet, Microsoft, who initially fired the round, ultimately took the hit.
Microsoft called out Yahoo for a showdown, Yahoo stared them down and Microsoft flinched. This likely will not bode well for Ballmer, whose tough talk last week suddenly turned to meek withdrawal. Ballmer, who was never really respected in some circles, seems to have lost even more overnight, and some industry analysts now predict his days as CEO are numbered. A few may even compare him to Darl McBride, the outspoken CEO of SCO who led the charge to own Linux and subsequently led his company to financial ruin. Such speculation may be presumptuous, but not unrealistic. After all, it is difficult to be taken seriously as one of the world’s richest and most powerful corporate leaders when your unofficial nickname is “Monkeyboy”.