How to Get Three Giants Out of Quicksand

Jason Miller writes on Web Pro news about the ultimate web merger and google killer.

“How do you get three giants out of quicksand? The biggest giant eats the other two and makes a boat from their bones.

That seems to be Wall Street’s approach to building an apt competitor to Google. Shortly after analysts dreamed of a Microsoft-owned Yahoo, they’ve amended their solution to include AOL.

Last week, Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen told reporters that an AOL Yahoo merger was possible in 2007. Cohen said an AOL Yahoo merger was “one of the more logical combinations” to take on Google, cut costs, and combine audiences, and that Time Warner was open to it.

This caused quite the buzz, spawning charts with potential combinations of companies that could merge with or be acquired by another company for strategic reasons.

A Yahoo AOL combination is considered among the most likely, as is a Microsoft buy out of AOL and/or Yahoo.

Or, if we get out our pie-in-the-sky caps, the ideal scenario is Yahoo merges with AOL and Microsoft buys them both. MSN is sinking in the search market. Yahoo is stagnant. And AOL is ready to be sold for parts. But, theoretically, the high profile threesome could make one hell of a Mighty Morphin’ Power Ranger.