4 ms·

Ballmer Speaks, Yahoo’s Market Cap Jumps More Than $3 Billion

11 points by qhoxie 18y ago

mtw 18y ago
I'd look in my own backyard if I were Balllmer. dump everything that is average (msn, vista, live, etc.) and come up with brand new products, from scratch
- timtrueman 18y ago
  And what exactly would be said "brand new products"?
  - zandorg 18y ago
    The same, but appended 'Beta'...
- jdunck 18y ago
  This is why you're not in charge of MS. They make tons of money on their existing, if problematic, products.
  - cstejerean 18y ago
    Not for long they won't. Just in the consumer space right now they're fighting Google and Yahoo in web, Sony and Nintendo in gaming, Apple in mp3, Android/IPhone in smartphones. Plus most of their money comes from lucrative deals with computer manufacturers. Sooner or later Dell, etc will realize that Apple is eating at their market share and Vista isn't helping and they'll start reconsidering their agreements with MS (and perhaps consider investing in customized versions of Linux) All while Google Apps is starting to compete with their Office/Exchange offering on the low end and IBM and Sun are getting ready to step in at the high end with cross platform solutions. I'm curious at how MS is going to turn the situation around.
fallentimes 18y ago
Am I the only who thinks Yahoo is going to be in excellent shape after they trim down and start focusing on what they're good at?
- zandorg 18y ago
  My Mother uses Yahoo for mail and news, I use Geocities for a few small webpages. I think they're a great company with the best PhD-to-riches story ever from the 2 founders Jerry and David. I think their founding story is even better than Google, even if their market cap is a fraction of that.
  - hhm 18y ago
    What's so interesting about Jerry and David's story? I remember to have found what I read about it quite uninteresting, so maybe I lost something.
    - zandorg 18y ago
      I think it's because they turned a website list into a 60 billion dollar company in about 5 years. And one investor in the early days was Masayoshi Son, and he was once the second richest person in the world in 1999. And that advert in the film Inspector Gadget. It's not worth a corporate biography book, I admit. [Edit] And after the dotcom crash, their market cap (in 2006/2007) was just half of its peak, quite impressive. And they never chickened out and bought, say, Disney. They stuck to their guns.
      - 13ren 18y ago
        What's the PhD part? What I like about Google's story is the PhD-technology-research that went into it (tho Woz wasn't a PhD student, I'd put the Apple story in a similar category). Creating a $60B co from nothing is an astonishing achievement - but this one sounds like a business victory, not a technology victory. Although cool++, it's not a PhD-to-riches story - they just happened to be PhD students. http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/history.html http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/history.html "Before long they were spending more time on their home-brewed lists of favorite links than on their doctoral dissertations."
iigs 18y ago
Every time MS nods at Yahoo the stock rises X%, and when the deal is obviously not going to happen it drops > X%. This is a really interesting way of battering your competition.

11 points by qhoxie 18y ago

mtw 18y ago

I'd look in my own backyard if I were Balllmer. dump everything that is average (msn, vista, live, etc.) and come up with brand new products, from scratch

timtrueman 18y ago
And what exactly would be said "brand new products"?
- zandorg 18y ago
  The same, but appended 'Beta'...
jdunck 18y ago
This is why you're not in charge of MS. They make tons of money on their existing, if problematic, products.
- cstejerean 18y ago
  Not for long they won't. Just in the consumer space right now they're fighting Google and Yahoo in web, Sony and Nintendo in gaming, Apple in mp3, Android/IPhone in smartphones. Plus most of their money comes from lucrative deals with computer manufacturers. Sooner or later Dell, etc will realize that Apple is eating at their market share and Vista isn't helping and they'll start reconsidering their agreements with MS (and perhaps consider investing in customized versions of Linux) All while Google Apps is starting to compete with their Office/Exchange offering on the low end and IBM and Sun are getting ready to step in at the high end with cross platform solutions. I'm curious at how MS is going to turn the situation around.

fallentimes 18y ago

Am I the only who thinks Yahoo is going to be in excellent shape after they trim down and start focusing on what they're good at?

zandorg 18y ago
My Mother uses Yahoo for mail and news, I use Geocities for a few small webpages. I think they're a great company with the best PhD-to-riches story ever from the 2 founders Jerry and David. I think their founding story is even better than Google, even if their market cap is a fraction of that.
- hhm 18y ago
  What's so interesting about Jerry and David's story? I remember to have found what I read about it quite uninteresting, so maybe I lost something.
  - zandorg 18y ago
    I think it's because they turned a website list into a 60 billion dollar company in about 5 years. And one investor in the early days was Masayoshi Son, and he was once the second richest person in the world in 1999. And that advert in the film Inspector Gadget. It's not worth a corporate biography book, I admit. [Edit] And after the dotcom crash, their market cap (in 2006/2007) was just half of its peak, quite impressive. And they never chickened out and bought, say, Disney. They stuck to their guns.
    - 13ren 18y ago
      What's the PhD part? What I like about Google's story is the PhD-technology-research that went into it (tho Woz wasn't a PhD student, I'd put the Apple story in a similar category). Creating a $60B co from nothing is an astonishing achievement - but this one sounds like a business victory, not a technology victory. Although cool++, it's not a PhD-to-riches story - they just happened to be PhD students. http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/history.html http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/history.html "Before long they were spending more time on their home-brewed lists of favorite links than on their doctoral dissertations."

iigs 18y ago

Every time MS nods at Yahoo the stock rises X%, and when the deal is obviously not going to happen it drops > X%. This is a really interesting way of battering your competition.