I was going to write a long, insightful peace (heh) on how I think Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo seems so desperate and bound for failure, when I read Scott Rosenberg’s post that says it a lot better than I was going to:

But in the long term, these efforts at lashing together two failures in hopes of sparking a success have never prospered. For Google, the target of Redmond’s chess move, there is really no danger here. Google today needs to worry about the drag on its stock from the broader market troubles, and the drain on its brainpower by the lure of new startups. Microhoo is hardly a threat.

Microsoft might win in the short term blasting its ads across Yahoo’s traffic, but the fact is both are failing to keep up with Google and other emerging services (aka Facebook) in terms of dealing in new opportunities — which is where the puck traffic will be, not where it is today. (+2 to Steve Jobs, via Gretzky’s Dad, apparently).