After the considerable amount of press over Microsofts bid to buy Yahoo, the rejection by Yahoo, and then the announcement that Microsoft was going to continue to try to take over Yahoo it seems that Yahoo has been doing everything in its power to be unattractive to Microsoft. First there was the changes in the benefits package that would mean Microsoft would be paying out for a long time for former Yahoo employees. Today I read that Yahoo has joined the OpenSocial group. When the initiative was formed Microsoft didn't seem impressed since they have a programming model for Live already and OpenSocial was more of an idea for bringing the different ways of writing gadgets, portlets, blocks, or whatever they are called for social networking sites under a common API. If Yahoo is successful in implementing some of OpenSocial before the takeover it would require more work on Microsoft's part to change the technology and bring them under the Live programming model. Of course Microsoft could also just decide to support OpenSocial and leverage that technology but I haven't seen and couldn't find anything official in Live Search saying Microsoft will support OpenSocial. One thing is for sure, this is an interesting time for all of us as companies struggle with the tension between protecting their income streams and making sure their products interoperate with other products.

Read the complete post at http://www.grokdev.com/Blogs/scott/2008/03/27/ShouldMicrosoftStillBeTryingToBuyYahoo.aspx