YES - Fraser Neilson Director All Response Media
Combining the improved technology behind Yahoo's Panama platform with the volume of MSN Live traffic should reduce the dominance of Google. But the real significance of a merger is the combined might of their respective display ad platforms, ad networks and related tracking technologies. Microsoft and Yahoo being able to offer a behavioural targeting-based solution would be a powerful proposition.
NO - Nick Seckold
Head of search MindShare Interaction A combined entity will strengthen Microsoft's position in the online advertising space. However, search is a different challenge where Microsoft and Yahoo face an uphill battle to convince users to switch from Google. Our search campaigns encompass Google, Yahoo and Microsoft anyway, so the consolidation of Yahoo and Microsoft will simply mean there is one less search engine to deal with.
NO - Gavin Reeder, Head of digital strategy, BLM Quantum
The best quote I've seen on the subject is "putting two turkeys together doesn't make an eagle". That's not exactly my view, but the sentiment is about right. God knows the ad industry would like to see a viable competitor to Google. But in Europe at least, Google is too far out of sight. People are creatures of habit and, for many of us, Googling is part of our daily routine.
YES - Nate Elliott, Senior analyst, European marketing and advertising, Jupiter Research
Google dominates search in the UK. Advertisers tell us that buying keywords on MSN and Yahoo requires additional effort and generates few additional leads. This merger would create a more robust competitor. Although a joint Microsoft/Yahoo engine would be much smaller than Google, it would offer more leads for less effort than either can offer on their own.