Microsoft vs. Yahoo: Should Yahoo have been sold to Microsoft?

Yahoo! Inc. () is an American public corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, (in Silicon Valley), that provides Internet services worldwide. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine (Yahoo! Search), Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, advertising, online mapping (Yahoo! Maps), office productivity, video sharing (Yahoo! Video), and social media websites and services.

Yahoo! was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994 and was incorporated on March 1, 1995.

On January 13, 2009, Yahoo! appointed Carol Bartz, former executive chairperson of Autodesk, as its new chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors.

According to Web traffic analysis companies (including Compete.com, comScore, Alexa Internet, Netcraft, and Nielsen Ratings), the domain yahoo.com attracted at least 1.575 billion visitors annually by 2008. The global network of Yahoo! websites receives 3.4 billion page views per day on average . It is the second most visited website in the U.S., and in the world.

Microsoft Corporation (, ) is a United States-based multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, its most profitable products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software.

The company was founded to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Windows line of operating systems. Its products have all achieved near-ubiquity in the desktop computer market. One commentator notes that Microsoft's original mission was "a computer on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software." Microsoft possesses footholds in other markets, with assets such as the MSNBC cable television network, the MSN Internet portal, and the Microsoft Encarta multimedia encyclopedia. The company also markets both computer hardware products such as the Microsoft mouse as well as home entertainment products such as the Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune and MSN TV. The company's initial public stock offering (IPO) was in 1986; the ensuing rise of the company's stock price has made four billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees.Chapman, Merrill R., In search of stupidity: over 20 years of high-tech marketing disasters (2nd Edition) , Apress, ISBN 1-59059-721-4.*

Throughout its history the company has been the target of criticism, including monopolistic business practices and anti-competitive strategies including refusal to deal and tying. The U.S. Justice Department and the European Commission, among others, have ruled against Microsoft for various antitrust violations. homepage at the United States Department of Justice

Google Inc. is an American public corporation, earning revenue from advertising related to its Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing services as well as selling advertising-free versions of the same technologies. The Google headquarters, the Googleplex, is located in Mountain View, California. , the company has 20,164 full-time employees.

Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998. The initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising US$1.67 billion, implying a value for the entire corporation of US$23 billion. Google has continued its growth through a series of new product developments, acquisitions, and partnerships. Environmentalism, philanthropy and positive employee relations have been important tenets during the growth of Google. The company has been identified multiple times as Fortune Magazine's #1 Best Place to Work,"100 Best Companies to Work For 2007". Fortune Magazine (link published by CNN). 22 January 2007. Retrieved on January 8, 2007. and as the most powerful brand in the worldBrandZ Top 100 2008 Report (PDF) (according to the Millward Brown Group).

Google's mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". Google Corporate Information The unofficial company slogan, coined by former employee and Gmail's first engineerHistory of Gmail at Wikipedia Paul Buchheit, is "Don't be evil".Paul Buchheit on Gmail, AdSense and More Google Blogoscoped[http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/03/dont-be-evil-trigger-for-ethical.html Don't Be Evil, a Trigger for Ethical Questions] Google Operating System BlogSmall Talk with Mr. Paul Buchheit - Creator of Gmail, Adsense & FriendFeed! CrazyEngineers Criticism of Google includes concerns regarding the privacy of personal information, copyright, and censorship.