With the offer from Microsoft of $44.6 billion, the cackle of voices and opinions from all corners of the technology and software industry is joining in a chorus to offer how good or bad this is for the parties. I live in Silicon Valley, the voices here are definitely anti-Microsoft. Microsoft is a lot different from the days of Netscape. I don’t know why people here spend so much energy in hating a company instead of just focusing on making a better product and out selling the competition. Oracle, Sun, Novell, Google, Yahoo! all seemed to be obsessed with Microsoft. Google makes a better search product than Microsoft, Yahoo! is a better portal than Microsoft. I use Google for search and Yahoo! Finance for the financial portal and Windows and Office on my desktop. I recently read an article that Jerry Yang hates Microsoft and he would rather leave after the merger than stay. Another article refers to his decision making based on emotion rather than his fiduciary responsibility. The article goes on to say that people can’t disagree with Jerry in meetings. If people are afraid to disagree with him, then perhaps this has more to do with Yahoo!’s performance. Say what you will about Microsoft, at least they deliver; may be late; but still deliver.

 Tiger Woods, Jerry’s friend, can help Jerry by passing on some of his stoic skills on the golf course and use it to bring Microsoft and Yahoo together. Bill and Melinda were at Tiger’s wedding and he also knows Warren Buffet who is a close friend of Bill’s. Tiger is the ideal deal maker to make this marriage an amicable one.