In the past few weeks, we have seen Microsoft trying to acquire Yahoo! for some $46-odd billion dollars. They failed.
So, moving on, they are trying to acquire Facebook now. Mark Zuckerberg is standing firm on this one though. They are decisively saying "no" to the acquisition.
Facebook is not seeking to be acquired anytime soon.
With rumors of Microsoft offering anywhere from $15-$20Bn to Facebook.
But what kind of complications would this have for Yahoo! or Google? The primary factor is the data available to the search engines.
Right now, for the most part, Facebook data is confidential and protected from the search engines being able to see it.
On the same side of the coin, Facebook has also joined forces with the Data Portability movement. Of course Facebook will have guidelines and requirements for anyone to access the data and display it, but they have indeed joined the movement.
Microsoft wants access to all that data, but they want only Microsoft to be able to access it. Having access to the Facebook data would mean that Live.com would have more data on specific individuals than any other search engine or platform out there.
This would be a huge leap for Live.com. But do we want that? No, definitely not.
Microsoft needs to figure out some other method to get their digital business going. Stop trying to acquire other huge corporations like Yahoo! or Facebook.