Henry Blodget over at Silicon Alley Insider has a thoughtful post today predicting that Google will beat out Microsoft in the Facebook sweepstakes, and that the real winner here is Facebook founder Zuckerberg who will walk away from any deal with a jaw dropping, market driven valuation of Facebook. Blodget notes that even if Microsoft spends enough to win the Facebook bidding war Google wins again because Facebook will simply milk Microsoft’s cash cow leaving them with little in the way of a superior online MS environment.
I think this last point is particularly relevant, and poses one of the key threats to Microsoft’s long term viability. Unlike Google and even Yahoo, new companies don’t appear to see a Microsoft aquisition as much more than a big payday. It’s not clear to me that Google does any more for the companies it aquires than Microsoft does, but I do think the perception is that Google will inject innovation and enthusiasm where Microsoft will just absorb you into their failing online collective. I don’t think these assumptions are, on balance, valid, but I think they are part of the equation when new companies and their generally young, inexperienced founders are courted by the big players.
Joe Duck 