MicrosoftによるYahoo!の買収提案が発表は、サーチエンジン業界に関心のあるウェブマスターの間だけではなく、一般のニュースでも話題になっています。
しかし、いちばん気がきではないのは両社の社員、とりわけYahoo!の社員でしょう。
Yahoo!のCEO、Jerry Yang（ジェリー・ヤン）氏とRoy Bostock（ロイ・べストック,新Non-Executive Chairman）が、現在の状況の報告と励ましを兼ねて、全社員にメールを送りました。
fellow yahoos:
since we talked to you this morning, there’s been a lot of media coverage and industry chatter about microsoft’s unsolicited proposal to acquire yahoo!. we know you’ve been hearing and reading a lot about this. that’s why we wanted to reach out to all of you at the end of the day to emphasize a few things that we hope will give you some more context about this proposal, the process that our board is taking, and what you can expect in the days ahead.first, we want to emphasize that absolutely no decisions have been made ? and, despite what some people have tried to suggest, there’s certainly no integration process underway. this proposal is just that ? a proposal. and it was only made in the last 24 hours. you can be sure the board is going to review it thoughtfully and carefully, and do what’s right for our great company. microsoft’s proposal is one of many options that we’re evaluating in order to maximize value for our shareholders and employees over the long-term. that’s why we will respond to microsoft after our board has completed a careful review of all of our strategic alternatives.
second, we can’t let any of the noise we’re hearing around this situation distract us from our core mission. it’s critical that we continue to focus on running our business, executing our strategy and delivering value to all of our users, advertisers and publishers.
finally, we realize that this may have been a tough day for many of you, especially those on the front lines of our business. we know you have many questions, and we’re committed to making sure you’re as informed as possible as this process moves forward. in the interim, we both want to thank you for your continued energy, focus and determination. we’ll continue to share information with you as we have it and can do so.
jerry and roy bostock (our new non-executive chairman)
簡単にまとめると、次のような内容になります。
「マイクロソフトからの提案は、あくまでもただの提案であって、まだ何の決定も下されていない。買収は、株主や社員にとってもっとも利益を与えると考える、数ある選択肢の中のひとつだ。
いろんな噂が飛び交っているが、本来の業務に集中してほしい。
試練のときだが、頑張ってくれ。情報は、逐一報告するようにする。」
トップとしては、社員の不安を鎮めるためのごく自然な内容の通知ですね。
このメールを受け取ったヤフー社員が、これで安心するかどうかは別にして。
建前上かもしれませんが、買収に関してはまだ何も決まっていないとのこと。
一方、Microsoftの米国本社 役員Steve Ballmer（スティーブ バルマー）氏も、社員に向けてメールを送っています。
Our complementary assets will give us increased talent and scale to compete in the markets of search and online advertising, and pioneer new innovations in the areas of video, mobile services, online commerce, and social media… During this transition period, I urge you to stay focused on your commitments and team goals. We are committed to communicating with you frequently as our leadership team works on bringing the two companies together.
こちらも、自分たちの業務に集中するように言ってはいますが、「During this transition period（移行期間の間）」とか「bringing the two companies together（２つの企業が一緒になる）」など、すでに統合が始まっているような書き方です。
さらに、社員宛に配信したウェブキャストで、Kevin Johnson（ケビン・ジョンソン）氏は次のような発言をしています。
It doesn’t make sense to have thousands of engineers at Yahoo working on a search index, thousands of engineers at Microsoft working on the same search index. By combining, we can have one team of people across the two companies working on the search index, and then have others continue to focus on areas where we’ve defined differentiation in search. New search verticals and expanded user experience for search. We’ve got so many ideas, more engineers applied to those ideas will drive breakthroughs in search. This is about expanding our engineering capability. Now, certainly, you look and say, well, we also understand it’s about operational efficiency. Yes, it is. There are duplicate costs across Yahoo and Microsoft.
前半部分がSEOに携わるウェブマスターには気になるところで、「search index」つまり検索サービスは、統合するべきだと述べています。そのほうが、効率もよくなり、他の開発に労力を割けるからです。
Microsoftの中では、買収後のシナリオが確実に出来上がっているのは当然のことです。
一方、Yahoo!はどのようなシナリオを描いているのでしょう。
ま、僕のような凡人が推測しても意味がないので何も言うつもりはありませんが、事の成り行きには注目していきます。