No decision yet on Microsoft-Yahoo deal

what did I say? This guy is all tactics and no strategy. And now, no credibility.

You better believe that if Jobs had wanted to buy Yahoo, he would have done a hell of a lot better than this.

is a very one-dimensional strategy. Apparently that's all he's got in his trick bag - bully and bluster, bluster and bully.

That's what happens when Microsoft let people like Apple, Google, Firefox, and Linux compete with them without snuffing them out of existence. You get people like Yahoo not taking Microsoft's threat seriously anymore. ;). The Lion lost it's teeth and all that's left is it's roar.

At Apple's lowest point, Gates threw Jobs a lifeline right after the latter returned to Apple... because Gates knew that it was useful to have a competitor, if only to help keep the government anti-trust lawyers at bay. Of course, if he had had any clue how things would turn out 10 years later, he might have still helped but not quite so much.

In any case, the problem with Microsoft is not that they allowed competition, it's that they got where they are through brute force. That can work well -spectacularly well in some cases, like if you bought MSFT early on in the 90s - but as a long-term strategy, it is bound to fail. That's the lesson Ballmer is (or should be) learning now. He got where he is by bullshit and bullying. Those don't work so well now and he doesn't know what else to do.

When the only tool you have is a hammer...