What does the Microsoft-Yahoo deal mean to you

I have been pondering the Microsoft-Yahoo deal announced today. It has many fascinating business machinations, but it mostly comes down to you, dear Web surfer. Both companies are vying to know your search proclivities so they can target information and, therefore advertising, to you. This deal will bring a more heated battle between Google and Microsoft-Yahoo to sell you different wares.

Microsoft has made its living out of resilence, and its partnership with Yahoo is a classic example of its ability to partner with another company to make a run on a more innovative rival. Partnering with other companies is a difficult skill (just ask the auto industry), but Microsoft has been good at it. It made this deal at a low-point in the history of Yahoo, which has been clobbered, in a variety of ways, by Google. It will be interesting to see if this 10-year deal, which still needs federal approval, will elevate Yahoo and help Microsoft re-brand its own search technology, Bing, which is one of the best products to come out of Redmond for a long time. But search engines are really a way toward greater desktop dominance. Google is working on a free operating system, which threatens Microsoft’s core product, Windows. All of this back-and-forth between the companies will mean more innovative search engines, and probably better operating systems, because the companies are so desperate to track and understand you. With this deal, Microsoft is trying to nudge itself into the new era of computing. Since Google has not had significant competition for awhile it will be good news for consumers.