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Microsoft and Yahoo will not be getting married any time soon. For Microsoft, the jilted suitor, speed was of the essence. After three months of active pursuit, using flattery, money, and deceit it became obvious that Yahoo was more interested in being single. Microsoft, unable to use the marriage to catch up to it uber-rival Google, simply abandoned its pursuit and went back home to Redmond to regroup.

Since she has been abandoned, Yahoo’s worth has gone into a nosedive. This was expected, of course, once the handsome suitor abandoned the chase. The value of Yahoo stock will probably dip twenty or more percent after it was recognized that she was not as attractive as Microsoft had originally thought, or at least was no longer worth the trouble of an extended courtship, not to mention the effort of drawing up the perfect pre-nuptial agreement.

At the end of this love-hate relationship, we are almost back where we started, except that the reputations of both parties have changed, and things can never go back to the way they were before. In the world of celebrity romances, of course, nothing stays the same for long. Microsoft still needs a magic trick to catch up to Google. Yahoo still needs some financial help to shore up its slipping bank account.

So pretty soon this will start all over again. New dance partners will be selected. The media will report every second of every dance. The working public will go on with life, since there won’t be a huge difference for them no matter what happens. The world will roll on. Software will get produced. Search results will be returned. Maybe more of the software will be Open Source. Maybe the searches will get better.

For those of us out here watching, the only things that are sure is that things will change, and that we will change along with them. For one thing, we don’t have a lot of choice. For another, that is how progress works. Be honest, now, did you like that horrid wedding dress anyway?  ;o)