Microhoo Deal Roundup

It's been 24 hours since the big fat Microsoft-Yahoo deal was announced. So what do the professional thumb-suckers have to say? Let's take a look:

PC World: Bing's successful launch was the key to convincing Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz that the time had come to do a deal. Bing was not only a better search engine, but succeeded in rebranding Microsoft (MSFT) as a player in search. "That likely encouraged Yahoo to give up its search investments in favor of Bing so that it could focus on delivering better online content via its portal to drive online and display advertising." Plus, it couldn't have gone unnoticed that Microsoft's increase in the search market came at the expense of Yahoo.

ComputerWorld: Don't look for Google (GOOG) to start panicking. The search giant saw this coming a long time ago, and while Bing's launch was impressive, Google's had months to get ready to rumble. "I think that any successful company lives with a certain amount of paranoia," Technology Business Research Analyst Ezra Gotthail said. "It's not like they'll just start worrying now. They always worry."

New York Times: Ditto on the Google front. The search giant already had a considerable edge in search and advertising technology, and integrating the Microsoft and Yahoo systems will be a big headache. "Since the two companies will spend at least a year trying to combine systems, Google has another year in which to expand its technical lead in search."

Search Engine Land: Microsoft just got for free what it was willing to $47 billion for last year. "I think it's no question that Microsoft got a huge bargain. Rather than paying billions to acquire Yahoo's search technology and traffic, it's paying nothing. The 12% share [Microsoft's slice of Yahoo ad revenue]? That's coming off of Yahoo's earnings."

Silicon Alley Insider: Microsoft just got hosed. "Don't forget that 20% of Microsoft's 30% query share in the US will come from Yahoo.  Microsoft will get to keep exactly 12% of the revenue from this share.  88% of the value, meanwhile, will still accrue to Yahoo--Microsoft will just take a fee off the top for playing the role of transaction-processor. Microsoft, in other words, will bear all the costs that Google bears for each point of query share, but it willonly keep a fraction of the revenue." (italics theirs)