Why I’m excited about Yahoo!

re: Why I’m excited about Yahoo!

George — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:34:58 GMT

Sam,

I understand your excitement about getting great engineering talent and new ideas from Yahoo but the price seems high and the other prospects about integrating advertising into the Microsoft revenue mix may not be as profitable as expected.

Aristocratic networks with super-connected nodes often give way to more egalitarian networks over time. That time is coming soon for Google and Yahoo. Microsoft could be paying a fortune and have little to show for it.

Regards,

George

re: Why I’m excited about Yahoo!

Dietmar — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:59:20 GMT

Sam, you say

As the world has changed, so has Microsoft, to the benefit of the company and our customers.

I strongly dieagree, the world has changed and Microsoft noticed it too late.

You managed to beat greta companies like Netscape and Palm which I do not really care about, but having "the internet content" in your hand would really scare me.

I will avoid Microsoftw Web services as long as I can and I will do the same with Yahoo's services if Microsoft really takes over Yahoo!

In oppinion, which is as personal as yours Microsoft did not yet manage to proof that it is not evil.

Cheers, Dietmar

re: Why I’m excited about Yahoo!

Sam Ramji — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 05:38:46 GMT

Re: FreeBSD comments - My understanding from friends at Yahoo! is that there has been momentum for some time to migrate to Linux - most likely RHEL. Regardless of what the final OS is, from the Port 25 perspective it will represent a new frontier for interoperability.

I'd personally like to see us embrace the open source culture at Yahoo! and continue their tradition of contributing to a wide range of projects including operating systems. We do run FreeBSD in the lab although we're not developing virtualization capabilities to support it at this time. I personally think it's a great OS.

re: Why I’m excited about Yahoo!

Chris Knight — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:13:28 GMT

Clarification: takeover and migration of Hotmail.

re: Why I’m excited about Yahoo!

Chris Knight — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:40:20 GMT

Re A Yahoo!'s comments above: Microsoft aren't newcomers to FreeBSD. They dealt with it during the initial operations after takeover, during the first failed migration and during the second successful migration. Not only did they deal with it on an operations basis, but the CLR ('Rotor') was implemented as part of their reference platform for ECMA certification, and .NET Passport was implemented on both Windows and FreeBSD to assist Hotmail migration to Windows.

To Sam: what's Port 25's view on the acquisition of Y! with regard to the impact on FreeBSD? Y! is a significant contributor to FreeBSD in terms of server and bandwidth resources as well as developer resources. If a Hotmail-like migration was to occur with Y!, then this will have a significant impact on FreeBSD. Be interested to see if MS even consider this impact at all.

re: Why I’m excited about Yahoo!

Jin Tao — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:02:29 GMT

Hi Bill,

our servers are BSD based - not linux and it will stay that way ;)

re: Why I’m excited about Yahoo!

A Yahoo! — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 06:16:27 GMT

Regarding the previous comment, Y! runs all kinds of operating systems. FreeBSD is widely used at the moment, but it may not always be so and it is certainly not the only OS at Y!. The important part is the hardware on which those OS's operate. In my experience it tends to be x86-based machines. This infers something very important about "the platform" at Yahoo!: it can be virtualized.

If Microsoft wants to keep Y! engineers, they are going to have to make a commitment to allow them to use the technology stack that makes them happy. I think that will become clear to MS brass as soon as they start asking people why they are leaving (the answer will be fear, uncertainty, and doubt about working for MS.)

Y!'s is typically a very FOSS-based stack. If this stack was ultimately virtualized on Windows Server, it seems to me that everybody wins. MS gets to put their interoperability claim to the test (FreeBSD on Win Server will almost undoubtedly be a new challenge for them). Y!'s get to keep developing for *nix-like OS'. With any luck, a bunch of servers get consolidated and running Y! becomes more efficient and less expensive.

Quibbling over the production hardware stack is really missing the point in any case. What Sam is writing about above is culture shift at MS. I think MS is in danger of losing Y! engineers over differences in culture, perceived or actual. What MS needs to do is make strong assurances that Y!'s can continue to use the tools they choose to create innovative products going forward, and they will not be beaten about the head with a particular technology or corporate ideology. I have yet to see strong assurances to that effect and to be honest, there are few people at MS who could honestly make those assurances and make them stick. While we watch this play out, it is nice to see MS folks making an effort to reassure Y! that they care.