Contemplating The Microshoo! Culture Clash
There have been extensive grumblings up and down West Coast USA as of late, concerning Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo and the suspected culture clash that would result from a merger of the two corporations. Yahoo employees in particular fear the loss of an entrepreneurial atmosphere in Sunnyvale. Tech pundit and blogger Robert Scoble, speaking on a recent episode of the TWiT pocast, has the sense that a combination of the two forces would be messy and would be a job for their respective management teams to sort out for at least a year following the final handshake by their CEOs, Jerry Yang and Steve Ballmer.
I too can attest to forecasting a long, and sometimes painful transition period for Microsoft and Yahoo if the deal were to be completed. The people at Yahoo operate in a different fashion than those at Microsoft, for sure. There most definitely will be noticeable discontent and mutinous activity happening in both California and Washington states if things do proceed.
Yet, I also have to give Microsoft at least some benefit of the doubt here. Because believe it or not, Microsoft, despite its proclivity for playing a grumpy, graying (and let’s not forget domineering) technology giant, has a history of knowing when to take a mostly-hands-off, non-overbearing role in relation to its businesses, whether they be purely in-house developments or acquisitions. A number of the company’s research efforts, for example, are given a substantial amount of slack by the execs in Redmond. Yes, it’s true, Gates and Ballmer have had a history of granting a rather commendable level of autonomy to various parts of the corporate structure.
Therefore, I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t be too much of a leap to think Microsoft would play a reserved role as the new parent of a well-established $44-billion-plus Web giant. (more…)