Online War:Yahoo, Google & Microsoft on the Battlefield

The big question these days that has kept everybody on the edge of their seat is; Will Microsoft buy Yahoo?

The .com boom has certainly return back with a bang after it burst in the year 2000. The buzz is that, Microsoft the leading software making company has raise their claims from $30 Billion to $ 80 Billion for Yahoo.com. Yahoo is the largest and most visited website in terms of number of hits per day.

The war between the two giants, Microsoft and Google took a new twist after Google acquired Double Click, a online advertising company for $3.6 Billion. It is alleged that Microsoft was deliberately raising the stake for Double click to more then $3 Billion without real intention of buying it.

Now, Microsoft who competes with Google in web application field is going all gun out to get Yahoo.com. It is believed that Yahoo has rejected the initial Microsoft bid. But considering the competition faced by Yahoo from both Google and Microsoft, it won’t be easy for Yahoo to maintain its numero Uno position on the web.

On the other hand, Yahoo and Google competes with each other directly in Online advertising and online search engines arena. Both these online giants have huge share of their total revenue coming from online search and advertising. In fact Google gets more then 98% of its revenue from their Ad words program. The best option for Yahoo.com is to sale out to either Google or Microsoft. There is no way Yahoo can compete with Google in online market alone. They require someone as big as Microsoft to keep them ahead of Google.

My final assumption is, this time it would be difficult for Yahoo to turn down the offer from the Software giant.

Your views / comments are what I look forward to.

-Stella Roy

My Free Lunch & Fun

There's no free lunch. Remember that old adage? Well I guess that need to be change when we talk about Email service providers. To me it’s definitely FREE service and website likes YAHOO, HOTMAIL, GMAIL, REDIFFMAIL and INDIATIMES efforts should be commended.

I don’t know how this email things started and why it is FREE? But since the time some intellect came up with email model they are offering basic email service for FREE.

They do have some paid services also which provide better spam filter and many more features that are not included in FREE email accounts. But who requires all this features? At least not you and I.

Initially, Hotmail was the ONLY major player in this field, but in last 4-5 years there are many email service provider that are providing much superior email storage space. Yahoo is providing FREE 1 GB storage, where website like rediffmail.com is providing UNLIMITED email storage. Wow! now you can store your favorite songs, personal photos, important emails, your favorite movies, favorite videos in your email account with out worrying about the space limits in your email accounts.

The other good thing about all these websites is now you can even check your emails from your mobile. I don’t know what next? maybe read your email from your watch! Personally I like all the major websites like YAHOO and REDIFFMAIL but I feel HOTMAIL can still do lot better if it has to retain it’s members. GMAIL and YAHOO continuously keep on coming with new features to out do each other.
All I can say is that in the end it’s the user who are getting all the benefits of for FREE. We would like this war for free email continue till long time, I am little selfish here but I love it when there is healthy war among two big players.

Some IT gurus have written that soon there will be no email service for FREE, I guess till then let us have fun and keep in touch through these FREE emails service. I am always available at stella_ry@yahoo.com and yes I am using the FREE yahoo email account.

-Stella