Microsoft Eats Yahoo. Are You Next?

Microsoft is buying Yahoo because they can't innovate their way to dominance over Google.
But Yahoo hasn't done any better.
You can't compete because your bloated and slow, so you buy another fat, out of shape company?
Then there is the price, $45 Billion. But if Microsoft gets burned will they even feel it?
Time Warner felt the pain of their AOL fiasco. But they didn't use money that apparently has just been lying around in a warehouse.

Originally MS thought the key to advertising dollars was going to be the browser. So they crushed Netscape. However they soon discovered that search held the payday. But getting Yahoo's customers doesn't solve the core problem, which is that more people prefer to search using Google. When I'm at Yahoo and I do a search, I don't use their window. I use the Google search window in my browser, or I go to Google's home page.

Then there's the question of identity. Will there be Yahoo mail and Hotmail? Separate and not linked?
It would be insane to merge the two brands, but who knows what these people are thinking.
Google has been a great success do to just one feature, search. Likewise, Yahoo has grown largely on the success of their mail program. If the tight ass's at Hotmail had only relaxed a bit , Yahoo might not have caught on.
And there in is the other problem with this merger. Many people dislike Microsoft and still consider it the evil empire. How many fan's will Yahoo lose because of this link to the death star?
Maybe Google should build a multipurpose home page for Yahoo jumpers to switch to.