I don’t know about you, but I’m glad the Microsoft bid to acquire Yahoo was a bust—and I hope it stays that way. I shudder to think of the consequences of a company like Microsoft acquiring Google-like power. Microsoft already has too much power and control over my life. I don’t want to be further beholden to yet another near-monopoly; utility companies, telecoms and big oil are enough for me, thank you.

Now that Microsoft’s self-imposed Saturday deadline for conclusion of negotiations has come and gone—with Yahoo still a free country—it remains to be seen if Redmond will press the issue with a hostile takeover bid. Does Microsoft really need to spread any more ill will? Does it still have the political capital to pull off such a move?

It seems unlikely, particularly in light of comments by CFO Chris Liddell in Microsoft’s earnings announcement last week. "Unless we make progress with Yahoo towards an agreement by this weekend, we will reconsider our alternatives," Liddell said. Such alternatives, he said, include “taking an offer to the Yahoo shareholders, or to withdraw our proposal and focus on other opportunities, both organic and inorganic,” whatever that means.

Meantime, Yahoo has been making moves of its own, many of which are of a culture that’s decidedly non-Microsoft. For example, Yahoo recently joined Google’s OpenSocial project, which "defines a common API for social applications across multiple Web sites," according to the site. More recently, Yahoo last week
announced improvements to its
Developer Network and posted a fresh beta of YSlow, its free Firefox add-on for Web-site performance testing.