Yahoo! To Acquire Overture For $1.6 Billion (original) (raw)

from the search-consolidation-continues... dept

The massive consolidation in the search space continues. Following a deal last year for Yahoo to buy Inktomi, as well as deals earlier this year for Overture to buy AltaVista and AllTheWeb, it was clear that the search space was converging. Combined with recent stories about Microsoft gearing up to enter the search space (and making an offer that was turned down to buy Google) you knew that it was going to continue. The latest (big) move is that Yahoo has agreed to buy Overture for $1.63 billion dollars. Clearly, this brings them one step closer to ending their deal with Google. However, I also wonder if it ends up harming Overture in the long run. Some other web properties may be much less inclined to work with Overture with Yahoo as their parent if they, in any way, compete with Yahoo. Still, it appears that the search world is far from done shaking itself up, and there are likely to be more deals following this one.