Microsoft has been in talks for several weeks about a possible acquisition of eBay according to a recent article by the New York Post. Unnamed sources close to the Post said the tech giant is considering buying online auction leader eBay and merging it with MSN in an effort to challenge Google for Internet supremacy.
While talks are still active, the Post says they have “cooled somewhat” as a result of antitrust concerns. And despite last week’s announcement that eBay and Yahoo formed an advertising and search alliance, sources say it won’t quell Microsoft from courting eBay.
If the Microsoft-eBay deal goes through, it could be very lucrative for MSN as eBay sees $1,608 dollars exchanging hands every second on its website.But, the deal also seems like a desperate move from the Redmond-based giant as the company has been faced with mounting criticism for delays over its next operating system, Windows Vista.
EBay, who owns online voice-over-IP company Skype, could also be a welcomed addition to the Microsoft family as the company needs new avenues in which to compete online.
No comment. Although I guess it’s worth mentioning that the Post has about the same reputation for accuracy as it’s sister media outlet, Fox Snooze.
The worst thing, imho, aint that Microsoft will buy eBay; but that by buying eBay they will also own Skype… I DONT want M$ to own Skype…>_
Oh my … why doesn’t MS just buy the world and be done with it … you can bet they’ll trash everything they get their hands on … please not Skype … although, if they can’t develop anything good in-house (WinFS comes to mind) maybe they SHOULD buy everyone else, just to stay in buisiness …
I hope the deal goes thru if only to see how M$ screws it up.
I thought Fox News was just biased in their commentary. I didn’t know they were not accurate in their presentation of news.
M$ will screw it up somehow, they always do.
Um,
do you REALLy think they could do ANY BETTER…??
ALSO they get PAYPAL…Probably
We made http://www.google.com our homepage on all computers deployed at work. It’s a simple SEARCH homepage, with one graphic. We did a survey on what people used the internet for, at work and at home. Number 1 was email. Number 2 was searching for information or “things”. Since we have a corporate email server, and discourage checking personal email while working, most people use the web at our offices to find something for our business. Hence, we used the best, and simplest interface available: GOOGLE !!!!
The default, MSN, is bloated and laden with thing we either didn’t want people to use (loss of productivity), or “features” that nobody used — just like the rest of Microsoft’s portfolio.
My predecessor had http://www.yahoo.com as the default homepage. We did away with that ASAP. Yahoo leads to popcap (spyware, intrusion, overall system performance penalties), has a dozen little pictures, and more. HUGE waste of resources fixing problems caused by Yahoo.
We found that OUR BANDWIDTH USAGE WENT DOWN after removing Yahoo, not using MSN, and deploying Google through Active Directory Group Policies. It was that simple. Of course, my boss took the credit for my idea. That’s a different story.
I am not sure, but I somehow doubt the “beating Google with eBay” scenario. If M$ does buy it is probably to crack down on unlicensed sales of M$ software.
I mean really…how successful has BSA been?
This sounds like old school Microsoft. If you can’t beat’em, buy’em.
I can see the day where if you want to use eBay, you will have to use a Windows box (or maybe a network capable XBox).
What a deadly combo! The only way it be be worse is if somehow The 700 Club entered the mix.
Don’t worry – MSFT will screw it up – and everyone will use Google Base (finally having a reason to do it). MSFT will blow all their cash and it will be the next AOL / Time Warner fiasco.
This will be fun to watch if it goes through
about comment 7)
What a boring company to work for.. so many companies demand more than normal work hours and then you want to prohibit them as much as possible to do anything else than work. Great.. why not build robots or androids so you can slave them 24/7 ? I hope they all look for a hell of a lot more on google.. (and use all their services) than just business “things”.
This is really bad for the eBay user; eBay is already completely unresponsive to the little guy – buyers. They tolerate all kinds of misbehavior on the part of sellers who create eBay’s income. This would only get worse.
Don’t discount the impact of running eBay, currently powered by Sun, on Windows either – it will be down more than up.
MS must be running scared over Google to even consider these schemes.
Wow, I didn’t think of the eBay/Sun connection. What would M$ do in this case? Require a complete re-write of eBay code to work on Windoze servers? And what about all the eBay coders that are Unix/Java guys? Would they be replaced with Vista/IE programmers? Or would they be re-trained?
Scary stuff if you work at eBay. I bet M$ would be forced to acknowledge that it would be too costly (and foolhardy) to convert eBay to Windoze machines.
I still bet it would be required that you use IE 7.0 as the price of admission. That would be a textbook example of monopoly power at work.
Why does MS keep trying to be a [media] [e-commerce] [search] [enter latest panic ploy here?] company. I don’t really know, but I suppose it’s because they’ve become so ginormous just being an OS/Office monopoly. I mean, if you’re a monopoly, where’s the growth potential? You already own the entire market – there’s no where else to grow!
I still maintain the software and computer industry would have been much better off if MS had been split into two or three separate competing companies back in the late 90s. Lots of people were right about it then. Why don’t people listen? Of course, lots of people said we shouldn’t invade Iraq, too…
#12….geez….how mean spirited of a company that pays your wages, and most of your benifits, that feeds your family, pays your mortage and whatever else you like spending your cash on, to actually want you to spend their time working on THEIR business.
Bastards…..how DARE they.
You all got that article wrong….Microsoft wants eBay to SELL Microsoft on line.
The improper use of apostrophes makes baby Jesus cry.
7.
you dont want to hear my nightmare.
I was reinstalling Win2000, and had to get to the net.
The person had Dialup and an MSn account.
AS SOON as I signed in, and got to the home page….
5 virus, and 17 bots were on this machine. ANd its dialup, TALk about SLOW.
I had to get my AV and Anti bot wares up, and after 2hours of fighting the machine..got it cleaned, and HIT MS update… 2 days, 10 ours per, Later..I had it updated and running, and protected.
I then sent a dirty letter to MSN.. They dont check their adverts for bots or virus(few do), but as a home page site, it SHOULD be clean.
#17, Joshua, Maybe you don’t recognize this type of company, but after you enter the work force you just might end up working there.
When the attitude of Management becomes mean spirited, it ends up showing on the employees. Wages will most likely be below industry average. People leave and the replacements are seldom as good. People loose their interest and motivation and don’t give it their all. At the end of the day, the bottom line is will show less profit, more errors, lost customers, and higher medical costs.
In contrast, the companies that do care about their employees as a valuable asset will have fewer employee problems, a higher motivated team, and lower medical costs. Turnover will be lower and hence, training cost are less. Quality costs will be lower and customers retained.
So judging from your response to #12, which company do you think you will work for? And forget about you owe the company your labor. There is more to renumeration then just the paycheck at the end of the week.
Hi, I’m the poster of #7.
#19: Yes, that happens. You need to make a slipstreamed Windows 2000 CD, with Service Pack 4 integrated, and install anti-virus software before ever going online. It also helps to have a hardware firewall handy for re-installs.
#12 & #20: Just to clarify: the “company” is actually a non-profit, that runs on donations and grants. Would you want to donate money you think is going to help your community, only to find out it’s being spent on websurfing? Many of the ’employees’ are actually unpaid volunteers. We help the community as much as possible, and barely stay afloat as it is. The organization does allow people to use their systems for some personal use during lunch hour, and before/after work. The few restrictions we place are:
1) No online games of any kind. Yahoo’s popcap games, and most other “online/shareware/freeware” games employees tried, were very bad for the business computers.
2) No running your own business on our computers, especially if your business is in direct competition (the two we caught were stealing customers).
3) No porn, use of adult, hacking, or gambling sites. This is to keep the lawyers away.
4) No downloading or installation of software, this was also a major spyware/piracy problem, and also keeps the lawyers away.
5) No streaming media. With hundreds of computers all sharing a single T1, this only makes sense. 20 streaming 128k feeds would stop everybody from surfing.
We do allow people to use personal email, which I don’t like, but we do. Since we’re a non-profit, and get good computers very cheaply, we also have an employee computer-purchase program. Our employees are encouraged to get really nice systems at a far lower cost than you can, and do whatever they want with them. We’ll even help them out with home PC problems for free, if they follow some of our guidelines for home use, and install certain software to protect their systems.
Patrick, some day if/when you run your own business, you’ll understand. Until then, stay in school!
Helping the world, one troubled kid at a time…
so, Mr. Fusion, a company that won’t let you roam around the internet, reading your private email and blogging on Dvoraks blog site is an evil company?
Badly run compnaies are just that, badly run companies. Of course it’s better to have a workforce that is happy and enjoys coming to work. But at what point would you have the company start to worry about productivity? Maybe if there was less time spent on doing your personal internet business and a bit more on company business it would mean less late nights trying to do what you should have done during regular business hours.