Yahoo! & Microsoft finally walk down the isle together – a marriage made in search heaven?

The announcement this morning that Yahoo! & Microsoft have finally tied the knot and will provide advertisers with a combined search offering has been a long time coming. The dominant partner in the relationship – Microsoft, has been trying to drag Yahoo! kicking & screaming down the isle for the best part of a year and the on going saga has claimed many an exec along the way, not least founder and former CEO, Jerry Yang.

In essence, the fait accompli was almost inevitable given Google’s dominance in the search space. Alongside the worsening search ad revenues of the respective number 2 and 3 in the market, the Seattle giant really had to push this deal to appease shareholders. With both companies announcing poor results last week, the deal will also help boost moral and regain some bravado with disgruntled Microsoft  staff probably sick an tired of playing 2nd (& 3rd) fiddle to the incumbent leader.

So what does the future hold?

Well, if the recent uptake of Bing and the ongoing rebrand of Yahoo!, with it user generated facility is anything to go by; the folks at Mountain View may want to re examine where their focus lies. Mass investment in Android, Chrome OS, Maps/Street View etc, may be reviewed if the momentum in the tie-up gathers pace. Augmented to all the hoo-ha is the recent news that after 3 years, a $1billion investment made by Google for 5% of AOL was finally bought back by AOL’s parent, Time Warner for a mere $283 million. Do the math.

If I could be anywhere tonight– a fly on the wall with newly weds,  Bartz and Balmer would be my first choice….watch this space.