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So, can Microsoft really climb to the top of the online search engine tree by paying a vastly inflated price for the company that's sitting in a very distant second place in the market? I think not. But there's another question that needs asking - does Yahoo really want to get into bed with Microsoft, even with that kind of money on the table? That's slightly more tricky to answer, since much of the good stuff that Yahoo has done resides in the Open Source community and I can't see that side of the business being too attractive to Microsoft. That said, shareholders have a habit of voting with their bank balance in mind, regardless of how disparate the two companies' visions may be.

Assuming that the Yahoo shareholders cave in and the potential deal goes through with Microsoft, should Google start to worry? It's unlikely that the upper echelons at Google are losing too much sleep over this, if anything, they're probably quite keen on the idea. Unfortunately for Yahoo, a buyout from Microsoft could mean a complete change in direction and several steps backwards as a result.

Despite my somewhat negative take on Microsoft's bid for Yahoo, I'm not actually anti-Microsoft. Yes, Windows has some serious issues, but creating an operating system that runs on a million different hardware configurations is no easy task. But Microsoft's continual attempts to dominate all aspects of the technology market gets annoying at times. Quite simply, Microsoft can't and shouldn't be the market leader in every sector, no matter how much money it has to throw around.

If there's one thing that's become very obvious, it's that Microsoft isn't scared to spend money to get what it wants, although I still fail to see what MS thought it was achieving by paying $240m for a 1.6 per cent stake in FaceBook.

Of course Google is a large entity in its own right, so a battle with Microsoft would hardly be a David and Goliath scenario. But it's important to remember that some of the most innovative technologies come out of nowhere, and there's always a chance that Google could find itself toppled by an as yet unknown company. Who knows what technology will be driving all our Internet searches in a few years time, but I'm fairly certain it won't a Yahoo/Microsoft collaboration.

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