Bing was a miserable failure trailing both Yahoo and Google. Right now Google is ass raping Yahoo and Bing and every other competitor with around 71% share of the search engine market. Yahoo and Bing combined wouldn't even challenge Google but with a combined market share of about 25% they would effectively crush all the other competitors into non-existance.
The question is if Microsoft bought Yahoo would they merge the search engine with Bing as they did MSN? I think such a move would be a mistake. Its like if Coke and Pepsi were bought by the same company and that company decided to merge Coke and Pepsi brands into one. The move would cut market share and increase the ability for a new competitor to enter the market or existing ones to increase market share.
If Microsoft does purchase Yahoo, I think they should keep it running separately from Bing. Yahoo is a trusted brand with a lot of loyal users I myself still use it and it has nearly a 15% percent market share. Merging it with Bing a inferior performing search engine and service would do a lot more damage to then good for Microsoft.
Unless maybe Microsoft dropped Bing and Yahoo took over completely. However I think both brands are capable of co-existing better then either one being dropped. Both could serve different purposes for Microsoft. Next smart move for Microsoft would be to create a social network based around MSN. A huge amount of the world currently has MSN Messenger and Hotmail, unlike Google's attempt with Google+ , Microsoft already has an established user base.
If Microsoft were to add a social network to Hotmail and MSN, alongside a take over of Yahoo and a new innovative drive they could possibly claw some more shares from Google.
-JC7
"In God We Trust - In Games We Play " - Joel Reimer
