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

“I like the ITouch enough that I just sent an email to the Mavs IT head to see how we fans with ITouchs could leverage WiFi in the American Airlines Center before , during and after Mavs games, HDNet Fights and other events…”

Mark Cuban, owner of the Mavs, said that on his blog today. Many other business owners would be wise to follow his example and get ahead of the impact/possibility of that browser format.

I was talking to someone today and suggested that the impact of iPhone on ecommerce was vastly under estimated in terms of what was going to happen in the coming 12 months. Smart websites are going to start crafting iPhone formatted web pages and they’ll be used in droves.

Reading Cuban’s remarks made me think that retailers should have in-house WiFi with detailed product information in iPhone/iTouch format, the kind that once-upon-a-time you could get from available and knowledgable sales people.

Put a simple code on each product, go to iphone.storename.com/productid and get all your questions answered. Wouldn’t that be great?