Y!Phone
The escalation Microsoft to Yahoo! Remains as easy to imagine a priority on the agenda of the board of Redmond and Sunnyvale but lives in these last hours undergoing tired after barrels last week. What summarised at a glance.
All ultimatum launched by Steve Ballmer (which expires on April 23) the Californian company to accept the initial offer of 31 US dollars per share Yahoo! Opposed the umpteenth denial, a few hours after returning to the negotiating table with Aol to discuss a possible merger with the Internet division of Time Warner (in exchange for 20% of the shares, the company would receive Californian part of the money and Aol with which finance the buy-back and the original value of the stock between 30 and 40 dollars). In parallel Yahoo! Has put on track a collaboration of “evidence” in Google (which among other things already provides advertising platform to Aol and is a shareholder at 5% since 2005) in the area of services search advertising while Microsoft has knocked at the door of Rupert Murdoch to involve in the News Corporation and the weave the fabric of a Web system “three heads (Msn, Yahoo! and MySpace) can put in Google (which seems to have given any advice by Frank Quattrone, (the former banker finished discussed in trouble with the justice system, to address the offensive driven by Microsoft).
Awaiting news, the situation appears as frozen, not least because the focus of media in the United States there is another mega merge, one between Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, whose President. Roy Bostcok, holds the same office in Yahoo!.
Since meeting of the Board chaired by him meanwhile, reported two days ago, the Wall Street Journal, seems to have emerged as the agreement with Microsoft - without the participation of News Corp. - remains the most likely (the possibility of merger Aol with scontrerebbe is also scepticism of some major shareholders of the house of Sunnyvale). The road that will give life to the giant Internet analysts Americans have long been baptized “MicroHoo” would be the initial, namely the acquisition of Yahoo! By Microsoft. And riding this hypothesis has some people imagined now the first fruit of a marriage of hi-tech.
Jason Perlow, a reporter for Zdnet online has given thickness to a phantom mobile terminal, the Y! Phone, a device based on Windows Mobile platform, borrowed from the music player Zune Microsoft and able to offer their customers online services Yahoo! (Such as social Web site Flickr) and MSN (Hotmail e-mail) and main applications of the house of Redmond. In support of this supercellulare then there would be a digital camera, the module for data connectivity via networks 3G/Hsdpa and, unlike iPhone Apple, keyboard scrolling.
The blog Zdnet states that the Y! Phone is comprerebbe with just 300 US dollars thanks to the incentives of mobile operators who distribute on the market and not even missing the first (veiled) criticism. A cell pointing to the full sales, writes in fact the American reporter, should have more “sex appeal” of the current Windows Mobile smartphone and especially is the navigation interface terminals served by the operating system must drastically Redmond evolve to keep pace iPhone and expected Google phone made on the platform open source Android.
The idea partorita by Perlow, have been observed various practitioners of overseas is very fascinating but it is difficult to think that Microsoft and Yahoo! Can develop a synergy of this type quickly. And not alone. The producers of mobile devices, solcando the path traced iPhone gave a strong acceleration to their development of products with features and characteristics similar to those of the jewel of Steve Jobs and the risk to the alleged creation of “MicroHoo” would be to arrive late. The Y! Phone, in any case, it remains a hypothesis must not be neglected. What then is the result of the combination of software (the Windows Mobile operating system and the platform for digital content Silverlight), media players (Zune) and online services “made in Redmond” is all to see. For the son who will be there long before we need to celebrate the marriage (between Microsoft and Yahoo! Means).