Back to customer focus

So the Microsoft/Yahoo! deal appears finally off.

Kudos to Yahoo! for not just caving in - even though it will get crucified in the media and on Wall Street. I realize I am one of the few in the tech industry that believes that are multiple paths to shareholder value, not just M&A. As I wrote about BEA while it was rejecting the first offer from Oracle:

"We have created this hysteria that independent sw (and broadly tech) companies are doomed. Where is most of the innovation and productivity coming from in the industry - not the big guys, but the Google's, the salesforce's. We should be pushing the guys in the middle like BEA to benchmark themselves more against the innovators, not push them to get consolidated in to the expensive laggards."

As for Microsoft, I hope it ploughs at least some of the $ 40+ b into what its CIO customers would like to see more - SaaS, cloud computing, virtualization, enterprise search, better product quality. They fund most of Microsoft margins only to see much of that being invested in games, ads and other consumer areas. Paying some of that back to buyers in lowered maintenance - an innovation dividend - would be even better. Even though nvestors would then also crucify Microsoft.

To which I say - after the market melt down of the last few months, even more reasons to get our cues from Main Street, not Wall Street.