Perhaps you have noticed the bid made by Microsoft to purchase Yahoo. It always bothers me when innovators (not certain I would categorize either company among the new innovators) gets gobbled up. This seems to happen everywhere I look – it has happened to the textbook market and it clearly happens to technology companies. Joe Nocera (NY Times) makes the observation that this is a move of an old company. Remember IBM? Microsoft has been so productive, but now seems destined to try to hold on by using its financial leverage rather than its innovation and creativity. Can’t keep up with Google, buy the nearest competitor.
Flickr would be a great acquisition for Microsoft, but if Flickr is generating enough revenue to keep and develop this service, I would rather it remain elsewhere. I understand the struggles of the startups, but I object to the ponderousness when megacompanies inhale smaller companies. So, I could move my flickr images to Picasa as a protest, but that would be lot of work and I would then simply be moving between what have become the two big players. There must be a sweet spot in there somewhere. How to protect it?
Some do disagree and see this as a way to encourage rather than discourage competition.
