Following Yahoo’s rejection of the unsolicited bid, subsequent speculation on who else might emerge as a white knight, or even whether Yahoo and Google might get into bed together to keep Microsoft at bay, the scene appears to be set for a battle that, whatever the eventual outcome, will re-draw the competition map of the internet.

I wrote earlier about the complexities in combining Microsoft and Yahoo, pointing to the many different business and organizational issues that are constituent elements of this would-be marriage.

How to blend the two organizations’ very different cultures – organizationally and nationally – is a question that I think will become the most significant one to answer, especially if the bid eventually succeeds in the face of Yahoo hostility to it.

Yet culture is not only about organization and nationalities, especially in this case.

Today’s New York Times has an added dimension to this matter of culture, concerning technology:

[…] Merging corporate cultures is generally a major undertaking in any acquisition. What would set this integration apart, though, is where the culture clash is likely to occur – in the two companies’ basic philosophies on technology.

[…] Microsoft and Yahoo have drastically opposite philosophies on open-source software. While Microsoft has used some open-source code, it has generally not contributed technology to the open-source community. In contrast, Yahoo has been an extensive contributor and has built its internal computing platform almost entirely from open source.

In essence, the paper says Microsoft and Yahoo are like apples and oranges when it comes to technology.

Yahoo is to open source and Microsoft is to proprietary. That’s how I’d see it.

Could that be a hurdle too many, never mind all the other issues out there including attention from regulators and even concerns in China?

My question is this: won’t it really depend on the employees in each company and their willingness or otherwise to embrace change?

The NY Times’ article includes this very interesting view from an anonymous Yahoo employee:

[…] Inside Yahoo there are roughly three camps of employees, in terms of attitudes about the takeover, he said. One group, which he estimated was 5 percent to 10 percent of the employees, would not work for Microsoft under any circumstances.

A second group, he said, was taking a wait-and-see attitude and generally thought, “I wouldn’t apply to work at Microsoft, but I won’t resist.” The final group believes that Microsoft could significantly aid Yahoo with access to well-financed research labs, a higher stock price and the willingness to invest over longer time periods.

His own attitude is one of wait and see. “It depends on what they are willing to agree to in terms of not interfering,” he said.

And perhaps the most telling quote of all:

Ellen Siminoff, a former Yahoo executive who is now chairwoman of a search engine marketing firm called Efficient Frontier, said she believed that Yahoo employees would be more likely to stay and embrace the takeover if it were blessed by Yahoo’s well-loved founders: Jerry Yang, the chief executive, and David Filo, who is one of the company’s key technologists.

“If I were Microsoft and I could find a way to get Jerry and Filo to be supportive, that would make a big difference.”

I concluded my earlier post by saying whatever happens, this will be one heck of an exciting time for the communicators in both companies.

That’s also the conclusion here.

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I’m sitting in the audience at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel conference center – it’s a full house, a couple of hundred people at least – listening to the opening address by Euan Semple who’s currently talking about what was happening with employee online forums at the BBC when he was there.

I’m impressed with Melcrum’s organization of this event (kudos to Alex especially). Big room, impressive audio-visual setup. And everything works.

Equally impressive is the line-up of speakers today.

Back to listening to Euan. More later.

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First presenter is communication measurement guru Angela Sinickas who has just started speaking on audience segmentation. Then I’m on – which is why I’m at the top table now – to present on how technology can hep energize internal communication.

I shall probably have one of my PowerPoints (probably this presentation or perhaps yesterday’s workshop) up to Slideshare in a couple of days. Slideshare is the new service that lets you share and discover slideshows, now in beta and for which I just received an invitation to join.

Very interesting presentations this morning from Euan Semple, Paul Charles of Virgin Atlantic, Monika Stafford of Lloyds TSB and Mike Love of Microsoft UK. Worth more than just a passing mention here so a post to come after the conference.

More about the conference tomorrow. Next on the diary agenda – tonight’s blogger get-together with Debbie Weil.

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Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.

So it’s a good time to start preparing for participating in some outstanding professional development events coming up in late summer/early autumn:

The Web of Tomorrow: Stockholm, Sweden, September 5-6, 2006. Delivering a keynote presentation “How to prepare for the communication of the future.” In addition, I’m leading a half-day pre-conference workshop “How to produce and use a podcast,” September 4.

Delivering The New PR: Edinburgh, Scotland, September 13, 2006. Fourth in the series of one-day conferences organized by the University of Sunderland (info here on the last one in London in May). Presenting on business podcasting.

Podcast and Portable Media Expo: Ontario, California, USA, September 29-30, 2006. Participant in panel discussion “Podcast Metrics: Gauging Success With Different Audience Segments,” September 30. Plus a big social get-together with all the podcaster geeks who will be there.

Strategic Communication Management Summit 2006: London, October 18-19, 2006. Organized by Melcrum. Presentation “Using new technologies to re-energize internal communications.” In addition, I’m leading a pre-conference half-day workshop “How to use social media to create genuine employee engagement,” October 17. Download the conference brochure (PDF) here.

Let me know if you’re planning to attend any of these events – it would be great to meet up.

I’ve just updated my Speaking Engagements page including more links and a better layout of all the info there.

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Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.