Yahoo - Microsoft? Yahoo - AOL? or Yahoo - Google?

The battle of the internet giants are getting into the peak these days. These has all started because of the unsolicited offer of Microsoft Network to acquire one of the leading search engines, Yahoo, Inc.

Yesterday it was on the news that a possible deal America Online of Time Warner Inc. is a bout to close in. This could be a big threat to the offer of Microsoft to Yahoo. Microsoft still takes its stand to its $44.6 billion dollar offer to Yahoo while the latter believes that it undervalues the worth of Yahoo shares. It has also been reported that Yahoo is about to do a test run of Google's Adsense for search but the result would not affect the Yahoo-AOL deal. After years of battling Google in online advertising, Yahoo decided to take such test if it would benefit both internet giants. The test would not exceed 3% of the Yahoo search queries. It is said to be that about 90% of online advertising is the share that Yahoo and Google would get given the possibility of a partnership between the two companies.

The battle is just starting to be interesting. What will be Microsoft's move? Will there be a merger between these internet giants? Will it be a Yahoo - Microsoft? Yahoo - Google? Or Yahoo - AOL?

I believe that a merger of this four would definitely be a powerhouse and a monopoly indeed on the web. New search engines would definitely have a hard time competing with them if such mergers would take place.

Sources:

The Wall Street Journal

The Philippine Daily Inquirer

Yahoo, Microsoft Merger

I have been watching closely the merger being talked about by two of the giant dot coms on the web, Yahoo and Microsoft. Of course every blogger knows these two search engines because these are the players next to Google and bloggers knows the importance of being ranked in this popular search engines. The fact is, these three are the most important of the search enginese we can find on the web.

Yahoo rejected the $44.6 billion dollar offer of Microsoft which is said to be equal to $29 dollars per share of stock, because the Yahoo board believes that the price is not of the best interest to Yahoo and its shareholders. Microsoft applied pressure to Yahoo by expressing that they would directly address the matter to the shareholders and not to the Yahoo board.

I think that the merger is possible if the two camps would come up with an agreement that is both beneficial to the parties involved. I may not be so good when it comes to this mergers but in my point of view, the merger would be good for both companies for they can create a much better competition to the search engine giant Google, Inc. which is way ahead of the two companies involved.

Even with the slump in the Yahoo's operations, it has always been on the move to innovate and create ways to compete with Google. One of the recent announcements made by Yahoo is the inclusion of video storage and streaming to Yahoo's Flickr to keep up with Google's YouTube. Let's just wait and see how Flickr would do against the established YouTube which has been the pillar for video streaming.

There are lots of new things coming up on the web and we just have to wait and see what is in store for all of us.

Introducing The Google Android!

What is the Google Android?

Android is a software development platform for mobile phones based on the Linux operating system and developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. It does not allow third party developers to write native code, instead all user applications are executed by a specialized java interpreter.

The unveiling of the Android platform on November 5, 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 34 hardware, software and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. Android platform will be made available under the Apache free-software and open source license.

The alliance is composed of Google, Intel, Nvidia, Texas Instruments, eBay and others. HTC, Samsung Electronics, LG and Motorola which are also members of the alliance announced that it would use this platform in their products to be released within this year. The said platform will compete with platforms developed independently by Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, Palm, Research and Motion and Symbian.

The video attached is just a preview of what to expect of the Android platform. Sergey Brin co-owner and President of Google and Steve Horowitz explaining the capabilities of the android software. Google has invited developers to develop applications for the Android platform. Google will award 10 million dollars to developers who build great application for Android.

Features:

Handset Layouts
The platform is adaptable to both larger, VGA, 2D graphics library, 3D graphics library based on OpenGL ES 1.0 specifications, traditional smartphone layouts.

Storage
SQLite for structured data storage

Connectivity
Android supports a wide variety of connectivity technologies including GSM, CDMA, Bluetooth, EDGE, EV-DO, and Wi-Fi

Messaging
Both SMS and MMS are available form of messaging including threaded text messaging

Web Browser
The web browser available in Android is based on the open-source WebKit application framework

Java Virtual Machine
Software written in Java can be compiled into Dalvik bytecodes and executed in Dalvik Virtual Machine which is a specialized VM implementation designed for mobile device.

Media Support
Android will support advanced audio/video/still media formats such as MPEG-4, H.264, MP3, and AAC, AMR, JPEG, PNG, GIF

Additional Hardware Support
Android is fully capable of utilizing video/still cameras, touchscreens, GPS, compasses, accelerometers, and accelerated 3D graphics.

Development Environment
Includes a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, a plugin for the Eclipse IDE.