Accession Media

The big news this week of course is that Microsoft has unveiled a bid to buy Yahoo! for $31 per share in cash and stock. That equates to a $44.6 billion offer. As most industry analysts and pundits quickly realized, this is basically Microsoft’s latest attempt to try and stack up in the search market vs. Google.

Microsoft has tried repeatedly to build, rebuild and optimize the various incarnations of their own search engine product and its associated pay per click market tools. To date, in my opinion, they haven’t come close to being successful and remain the third tier player after Google and Yahoo! in the lucrative paid search engine advertising market. So it makes a lot of sense that they would buy the number two player to combine forces and get a bigger piece of the market.

However, beyond just search, Yahoo! also has massively trafficked and advertised upon content properties like Yahoo! News and Yahoo! Finance. So they bring more to Microsoft’s table than just search, they are also a major competitor to the MSN content network.

But, in my mind the underlying theme in this potential transaction is that Microsoft seems to be saying “I give up” in trying to compete with Google on its own. By buying Yahoo! they can get a jump start in the right direction and get away from the “software company” stigma. As Google continues to build out web-based (and FREE) tools and applications for the enterprise (which we use here at Accession Media and love), Microsoft needs to remain relevant in this reshaped market - buying Yahoo! could be a big help.

Of course, since this announcement the big question to Google has been “are you scared?” I’ve seen at least two interviews with high ranking Google execs where they were polite - but you could tell they were holding back laughter. My feeling is that, if Microsoft does pull off this purchase, and THEN manages not to totally screw up Yahoo!, the combined entity will still just be second best in the paid search market. A little closer to Google, granted, but still second best.

I’ve come to expect moves like this from Microsoft, but it makes no less annoying to deal with. Apparently the new version of Microsoft Outlook, Outlook 2007, will use the HTML rendering engine from Microsoft Word to display HTML email. Previously Microsoft Outlook used the rendering engine from, logically, Microsoft’s web browser Internet Explorer. What does this mean to you, dear email marketer?

Aside from having to test your existing HTML newsletter layouts in the new client thoroughly, you will also most likely need to back-date your newsletter code about 5 years. That’s right folks, its back tables galore and in-line styles! If you aren’t the person who has to code your HTML emails and you have no idea what that means, suffice it to say, there’s probably a lot of work to be done.

Why has Microsoft elected to do this you might wonder? From the links above and common sense it sounds like security is most likely the reason. There are just so many ways to exploit the Internet Explorer rendering engine that it makes Outlook a great entry way for malicious worms and viruses. But do they think that that Word rendering engine will really stand up long against the inevitable onslaught of spammers and other would be email “evil doers?” I think not.

We’ve done a few email newsletter templates for our clients that should stand up to this issue pretty well. You can check them out here and here. But who knows until we actually get to test them out. Anyone running a beta of Outlook 2007 who can run those through it for me?