Gates Explains Why Microsoft Needs Yahoo!

February 20th, 2008

There is really no way I can pretend that I wouldn’t rather see Microsoft running the world than Google, but hey, let’s get some search engine competition going on here regardless. Google is eating webmasters alive with their demands lately because their algorithm is easy to manipulate.

So…I’m sure you have heard that Microsoft has made a bid to buy out Yahoo!. Between charity events, picking out his Hansgrohe faucet, and any other worthwhile cause that Gates attends with his billions he still finds time to make an appearance and throw his weight around when Microsoft needs it. This time it is to compete with Google in the search market. How to do that? Take over Yahoo!.

Gates spoke to CNET.com Wednesday in an interview that discusses this very thing:

Q: You mentioned in some of the phone interviews earlier today that Microsoft isn’t really looking to up its bid for Yahoo. I was hoping you might be to talk about why acquiring Yahoo is important, what is it that they have that they could bring to Microsoft? And then as a follow-up, do you think the company is ready to go the proxy fight route? Is that’s what’s needed to get the deal in front of shareholders?
Gates: We have a strategy for competing in the search space that Google dominates today, that we’ll pursue that we had before we made the Yahoo offer, and that we can pursue without that. It involves breakthrough engineering. We think that the combination with Yahoo would accelerate things in a very exciting way, because…full interview