You’ve got a Yahoo e-mail account, and your best friend uses MSN.
You use Yahoo Messenger and she uses MSN Messenger for instant messaging.
When it comes to search, you both use both Google, and sometimes Yahoo and MSN.
So, what could Microsoft’s acquisition of Yahoo mean in all these areas if the software giant acquires the Internet company? (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)
Keeping an e-mail address is probably the biggest issue for most consumers, and one that is likely to be left as is for awhile, with each brand staying in place, said Allen Weiner, research director for Gartner, Inc. market research.
“The issue is, particularly as Microsoft has moved people in their e-mail business around, from Hotmail (which Microsoft bought in 1998) to Live Mail, and created some confusion around that, they certainly don’t want to basically say, ‘We’re all going to move you now to Yahoo mail,’ ” he said.
“The question is, how do they keep those brands in place, where appropriate, and then, where appropriate, do they bring those brands together?”
David Smith, lead Microsoft analyst for Gartner, said if Microsoft acquires Yahoo, there likely “would be ways to provide interoperability, to provide support, so that people don’t have to change” their e-mail addresses.
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What happens if Microsoft acquires Yahoo?
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