If the day progresses as expected, Microsoft will finally buy Yahoo. This has been an inevitability for some time.

I’m all for it, despite a general distaste for Microsoft, because Google needs a serious competitor and neither entity has been thus far.

Combining these two assets doesn’t immediately create anything particularly impressive, but the Yahoo platform will gain fortitude, a heap o’cash, and the ability to do deep far-reaching bus-dev deals. Given the size of this deal and the billions MS already put out for Aquantive it’s clear they’re serious about this.

And these are guys who know how to either get it right the third or fourth time around, or otherwise wait/beat/cheat their way into a competitive position.

We all benefit. Google needs a competitor to keep it’s priorities straight in terms of advertiser features, user experience, and business terms. The rolling-at-will through the landscape they’ve been doing for the last few years isn’t in anyone’s best interest - probably even Google.

Healthy competition between two strong, well capitalized companies with relevant business and technology vision would drive the continuing transformation of advertising in a positive way for the next decade.

I never thought I’d be hoping Microsoft aggressively joined any market, but in this case I am.

Update: Killer Fake-Steve-Jobs Analysis