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Like everyone else, we have been reading all of the buyout stories, which is no mean feat, since there have been a lot of them. The Microsoft / Yahoo! ritual courtship has been analyzed and hashed over until it is just bare bones left in the desert to dry. Through all of that, I have held on to one question, which has still not been answered to my satisfaction. Why?

If they had been able to agree, or even if they manage to get back together and tie the knot, what's the purpose? Yahoo! has gotten where it is by trying to be all things to all people, attempting along the way to maintain a bit of a madcap-though-geeky image. Microsoft has gotten where it is by designing and building software for people in white shirts, with an order of consumer stuff on the side and a healthy dose of monopolistic gouging thrown in.

How do you merge those two disparate philosophies? What does the devil-may-care Yahoo-er look like in a white shirt and a tie? Ballmer is not going to look great in a Hawaiian shirt, either. This is a little bit like trying to orchestrate a romance between Sleeping Beauty and the Troll under the bridge, although I don't really know who is who in that scenario. They would not have been happy together. There is very little that one could do for the other without a major change which would ruin the intrinsic values of both parties.

In the end, I think that Microsoft knows things are not going well and simply doesn't know what to do about it, so it decided to go out and buy something, like a jilted woman shopping for a new hat or a mid-life male buying a convertible. Buying Yahoo! is not going to solve any problems for Microsoft. Instead, they need to solve their multiple problems with legacy (mind-set, marketing practices, and code) and start building products that their customers want, instead of products that they have to browbeat their customers to buy.