crabapple

why stop at that? gmail integrates the ENTIRE INTERNET!!! here's stunning secret (using ff key shortcuts):

- when in gmail, hit "ctrl-t"

- done!

yes actually i do. and no, no one cares what email client i use

name three real companies where every employee is FORCED to use outlook

now let me guess a thousand respondents will tell me they are "forced" to use outlook. i call bullshit. where are these mythical phbs that walk around checking on what mail client you are using. and don't tell me you have to use outlook to extract excrete...err exchange calendar notifications...it took me all of about ten minutes to extract those in gnus using elisp

i strongly disagree. indeed the only party that didn't see the msft deal as a no-brainer were in management and the board.

to be fair, they have in a sense.

the company is profitable. they have cash in the bank. but the writing is on the wall, google has become completely dominant in ads. yahoo has tried to reverse this but google has just taken more share. web ads are a winner-take-all economy...it doesn't look good for anyone going head-to-head with google

yahoo won't go under, but its days as an independent company are likely numbered

are you kidding? they sell inferior hardware for more cost. it is trivial to locate a vendor selling better performing hardware for less cost

there isn't one. google's momentum in taking marketshare hasn't diminished one bit. yahoo has less share in ad dollars then they did two years ago. there really isn't much a new ceo can do to reverse that.

from a shareholder perspective, the msft deal was a no-brainer. especially at today's trading range. yhoo isn't going back to the 34 msft offered them anytime in the next five years. the next ceo will do their best to get something going again

someone who has no issues with cleaning house. frankly they should have gone with an axeman after semel in order to clean up the company.

you bring in the axeman, let him cut for a year until the forest is clear of deadwood and the remaining trees are in nice neat rows, you give him a $10 million golden parachute, send him on his way, and start trying to build something out of the good material left. if they had done this after semel, yahoo might be in a better place today.

i wonder if filo and ash patel will leave also...frankly it might do good to completely clean house of all the old guard and start with a fresh team with no alliances or turf issues.

you can be sure that selling to microsoft will be put back on the table for the next ceo.

the next ceo really only has one job - fire half the workforce and try to bring ballmer back to the table.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_dishonesty

don't confuse my post with advocation.

if insider trading pisses you off, do a little research into corporate taxation...you'll be amazed to know many of the banks getting in line for $700 billion in cash also pay little to no taxes, and some of them indeed exploit loopholes to get tax REBATES in the hundreds of millions. wachovia is one for sure that got hundreds of millions in tax credits.

let me break it down for you:

- poor people pay no taxes

- corporations pay few taxes (via loopholes)

- the rich pay few taxes (via offshoring and loopholes)

- you and i pay all the tax

there are millions of trades every day, by individuals, funds, even computers trading on behalf of people. its simply impossible for the SEC to know what each party understands or should understand before they transact. the antidote to this is near-full transparency in financial reporting...instead of trying to keep track of who knows what secrets, the SEC errs on the side of no one having secrets for long (disclosure)

of course! go look at any pivotal event in a stock to the upside or downside...look at the huge trading blocks that take place just before the huge swings (in either direction) just prior...do you think those people are just speculating? do you think you compete with elite trading firms on a level playing field???

sure, you can toss out warren buffet and george soros and everyone else too...they've all traded on information that was likely privileged, they might not have even known it

before you downvote me, go look up the rules for what constitutes insider information...like all trading rules, totally byzantine

its like driving in the carpool lane by yourself...now and then the cops throw a $500 fine at someone during rush hour to deter others from abusing the rules, but the reality is that the other 22 hours a day you can get away with it, and countless people do

you charge someone (an advertiser or customer) for attaching their name to or using your product/service and they agree???? we even have units to measure this, we call them dollars!!

in any case its too early. lots of the carnage has yet to be unleashed...the reductions in consumer spending will likely only become obvious in the shopping season for 2009 as the job cuts of 2008 accelerate and are felt.

the blogger's thinking isn't new....the 30s was littered with traders who tried to play contrarian too early and got gutted. let it play out kids, this will take time. preserve capital.

this was to be expected. the web ad market is nearly frictionless and google will be placing ads everywhere. the non-google web is going to move to a cable-tv model (monthly fees)....its the only way people will survive.

IF YOU SOURCE A LOAN, YOU SERVICE IT

by that i mean there is no reselling debt. when a lender resells debt (aka "securitization"), they have no real incentive to make sure the borrower can repay the debt...repayment becomes someone else's problem. the only incentive is to make as many loans as you can sell. so this is why you have mortgage brokers finding "innovative" ways to get $800k loans to people who pick lettuce for $30k a year...or put a thousand such crappy loans on a big back, call it a "SIV" and convince a pension fund that crap*1000 is safer than crap.

admittedly dropping securitization would put some fetters in the flow of global capital, but that would be the price of safety. it would really just be an issue of turning back the clock to the days when the banker who made you a loan to buy your house was the same one you mailed the check to each month