It's over for now between Microsoft and Yahoo (Microsoft abandoned their takeover attempt for Yahoo today), and while you won't see either company's mapping technology mentioned in the reports about the takeover attempt, location technology lurked in the background. Why? Well, the bid for Yahoo by Microsoft was all about strengthening the online presence of Mr. Softy. It's all about advertising, and not just online advertising. ALL ADVERTISING.
And all advertising is somewhere. It's on the net, it's on your phone, it's in your car, it's in your virtual world, it's on your own personal globe. Advertising is about context and targeting and location. It's about the when and where to receive a message at the right time. And that "where" part is a big part of the future of advertising. Local search, location-based social nets, and certainly mobility offer an incredibly huge opportunity to advertise.
Mapping is such a huge part of each company's future and yet such a small part of their revenue now. But it does offer an interesting analogy to what is going on in the location intelligence market as location technology could become so intimately intertwined with so many other facets of their business that it simply becomes embedded as just another product feature as we will see with Microsoft SQL Server, for example...and thus, disappears.
Speaking our LI 2008 conference last week, Mark Lawless of Yahoo!Maps said that after his initial negative reaction to the takeover that it might have been a good fit to be merged with the Microsoft team. And I'm sure he wasn't the only one. So, while the takeover is dead for now, and you're likely to see a major swing in the stock prices today, don't be surprised to see these two companies re-evaluate their situation down the road.
And the big winner in all of this...Apple. This company just seems to be off in a different (spatial) world.
