Jeremy Zawodny really seemed to be angered by Andy Beal's post. I'll start off by stating that I respect both blog authors. Here is the quote from Andy's blog posting:
Not a smart move on Yahoo's part, they are advertising on Google. Why isn't it smart. Let's see, could it be because they are giving their biggest competitor a thumbs-up just before Google intends to raise umpteen-billion dollars?
Jeremy, and rightfully so (being a Yahoo! employee), backs up his company by stating two arguments. (1) The way Google AdWords works is that if an ad is under performing, it will be removed from the Google AdWords listing for that keyword. So since its still up, the ad must be doing well. (2) Yahoo! owns a piece of that IPO, so they would like to see Google do well in the near future. But he doubts that Yahoo purchasing ad space at Google would impact their IPO.
All good points. I would like to take this one step further. I read an article last week on Microsoft's real motives when it comes to Sun. I spent about 10 minutes looking for the article but I can not find it. The basic premise was why does Microsoft keep Sun around? Why did they settle legal cases offering to pay them millions or billions of dollars when they probably could have won? The answer, according to this article, Microsoft needs Sun around. Without them, M$ would be a legal monopoly which the US Government would take down. Microsoft does not want to become a utility company, they want competition, just not serious competition. By keeping Sun around, they have that security blanket, a blanket that Bill Gates makes him comfortable.
Is it possible that Yahoo doesn't want to see the complete incineration of Google? I think so. Yahoo has a long way to go before being in Microsoft's position but it is something to think about.
