Microsoft Acknowledges Yahoo! Merger Issues

by , 3:25 PM EDT, March 10th, 2008

Noting that Microsoft and Yahoo! have two very different cultures and internal technologies, Microsoft's Ray Ozzie said that Microsoft would not rush the consolidation process, according to the Financial Times on Monday.

"Technology companies, if they dive in and just smash things together for smashing them together's sake, it's reckless, it's just simply reckless," said Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's Chief Software Architect. "I'm not in any way unrealistic about the challenges that would confront us," Mr. Ozzie continued "They have a number of different types of technologies. They have their own corporate culture."

Mr. Ozzie was likely referring to the fact that Yahoo! uses Unix and open source technologies to run its business. That in itself creates a certain corporate culture that Microsoft would have to grabble with in order to avoid a difficult merger.

Mr. Ozzie, who joined Microsoft in 2006, went through the hostile take over of Lotus by IBM when he was with Lotus. "We've lived through that integration, you learn lessons from it," he said.

Mr. Ozzie would like to assuage the fears of investors, fiancers as well as employess of both companies that Microsoft won't be acting like a bull in a china shop, seeking to undermine the open source culture of Yahoo with Microsoft products -- which Yahoo elected not to use for own business reasons originally. Whether those statements will satisfy all concerned is unknown, but for Mr. Ozzie, a veteran of the Lotus-IBM affair, to make the statement based on his own experience is encouraging.