Microsoft's Thirty Percent Solution

Most observers have dismissed the Microsoft-Yahoo alliance as a non-starter for both companies. Yahoo looks like the 50-year-old schnook who took a second mortgage on his house to buy himself a Corvette, while Microsoft seems to be buying an illusory bump in the ComScore ratings game.

My colleague Erik Sherman argues that the deal really hurts Microsoft by raising false hopes that it will ever catch up to Google (which is the underlying justification for this deal), thus diverting corporate energies towards a strategic dead end.

To read more, please see Microsoft's Thirty Percent Solution on my Technology Insights blog at BNET.