Oh, Dear... Time to stop using Yahoo!, I guess.

This is horrifying news. Microsoft, in a move which is, actually, completely in-character, has decided to try to buy its way into a (or another) market where it has failed to dominate on its own.

Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 BILLION. On the one hand, I'm thinking, "Anti-trust? Yeah. I think so. I REALLY think so. Anti-competitive? Absolutely." If the government doesn't stop this one, it's all over. You'll be eating MS-TacoBell and getting new MS-Goodyear tires at MS-PepBoys within a decade.

On the other hand, Microsoft, with its $303 BILLION market capitalization, and dwindling (20-something Billion, down from a high of 50-ish billion) cash reserves, may be over-reaching. Microsoft's online services have been a consistent money-loser, from what I hear, and most of those ventures have been parnered (MSNBC) or acquisitions (HotMail). This means, that, if MS lives up to their reputation, they'll buy Yahoo, re-brand it and drive it into a hill like everything else. It's sad for Yahoo!, its employess and fans, but may turn out to be the deathknell for Microsoft. ...which would be good for the rest of us.

See, Vista's a pig and just about everybody knows it. Office2007 is a pig, and just about everybody knows it. Dell, ASUS and Lenovo have either stepped in, or are planning to step into the Linux waters for consumer PCs. MS's lobbying power seems to be waning (their OOXML "Standard" was resisted by the ISO)

Maybe, just maybe, Yahoo! has to die for the greater good.

I'll tell you one thing, tho... if this deal does go through, I'll immediately abandon my Yahoo! email address, which I've had for 10 years. Yahoo!, if you take this offer, you're dead to me.