Ballmer! in! anything! could! happen! shocker! over! Yahoo! deal!

I remember when

Yahoo! and Microsoft actually had some relevance in my life.

Now it is Google, Apple, and Linux.

"You never know"

That's the basis for this article? "You never know..."

I want my money back for this cheep rag!

M$ + Yahoo! = internet hell

So Yahoo! got there first (sic) with its Webmail in 1995. Now Micro$oft refuses to play catch-up 14 years later! Which do you think is the the more astute company?

BTW M$ Office is bloatwear & has be removed from my PC

BTW2 Why has The Reg still got a Bill Gates icon's, he's history!

@Robert Moore

I completely agree. Where hasn't Microsoft got it wrong? Their OS is noddy on servers compared to Linux, noddy on the desktop compared to OS X. .NET is noddy compared to Java. Bing is noddy compared to Google. When was the last time that Microsoft produced something that was innovative and compelling? Not for a very, very long time.

MS and Innovation

"When was the last time that Microsoft produced something that was innovative and compelling? Not for a very, very long time."

When did they ever?

BASIC - First invented 1964, copied to Altair by Gates & Allen in mid 1970's

MS-DOS - Originally named qDos which was itself a clone of CP/M, purchased by MS in 1981

Windows - Copied from MacOS, which was itself based on a prototype from Xerox. Took MS 4 tries to come up with a barely usable version.

WindowsNT - Designed by David Cutler who MS hired from DECs VAX/VMS design team and was heavily based on VMS code and techniques with plenty of additional kludge applied to enable it to conform to previous MS "standards"

Word - Just another word processor which were first invented in 1972. An animated paper clip does not equate to innovation.

Excel - A copy of Visicalc, which was first invented many years earlier.

Internet Explorer - MS bought the rights to the Mosiac browser code and have been extending that code ever since.

Active Directory - A MS proprietary version of LDAP with a MS proprietary version of Kerberos for authentication, both of which are open standard products with previously existing open source implementations.

There is not ONE successful, innovative product that I can think of to come out of Microsoft R&D. Not one. If anybody can name one then please do so, because I would love to know of just one.

Hmm...this sounds familiar

Ballmer.........Daddy wants a hug!

Yahoo...........Get away from me,you lazy-eyed psycho!

(This may have appeared in a film recently. Plagiarism, or life imitating art?)

Awaiting first sighting of MS "Mr Bigglesworth"

@Goat Jam

NT originated as a collaboration between IBM and Microsoft called OS/2; true to form, Microsoft reneged on the agreement.