Microsoft Memo Eases Employees’ Concerns

If Microsoft Corp. succeeds in its bid to buy Yahoo, it would maintain the brand, said the company on Friday. The software giant does not intend to totally evacuate Yahoo from its Sunnyvale, Calif. headquarters. A top executive at Microsoft Corp., while addressing employee concerns hinted that the company is aimed at reassuring Yahoo's employees, as well.

Besides keeping intact its presence and the brand value the company would do its best to incorporate Yahoo's culture, wrote Kevin Johnson, president of the Redmond, Washington based Company’s Platforms & Services Division, in the memo.

"Both Microsoft and Yahoo! have great brands and technologies," he wrote. "Yahoo! has a very strong consumer brand and we are committed to build on the Yahoo! brand as a major part of the combined products and services we deliver to customers."

Microsoft’s website displayed the internal memo while Yahoo is on the look out for ways to discourage the $44.6 billion acquisition bid.

With the huge acquisition, Microsoft is looking at bringing Yahoo's top talent aboard as one of the major benefits in the proposed deal. The company already has some 1,800 employees at its own Mountain View, Calif., campus.

"While some overlap is expected in any combination of this size, we should remember that Microsoft is a growth company that has hired over 20,000 people since 2005, and we would look to place talented employees throughout the company as a whole," Johnson wrote.

This move by Microsoft seems more like a response to the partition plans adopted by Yahoo. All the company's full-time workers who lose their jobs without "cause" or quit "for good reason" after a Microsoft takeover would be given salary and health insurance for four to 24 months, plus other benefits.

If successful in the merger, Microsoft would be able to gain a solid foothold in the online advertising market, which is expected to grow to an $80 billion by 2010. Both Microsoft and Yahoo! are behind Google when it comes to search and search-advertising market share.

"We believe our proposal is a compelling one and that the combination of Yahoo! and Microsoft creates a more credible alternative to an increasingly dominant player in the advertising industry," said Johnson.

Shares of Microsoft closed on Friday at $27.68, down $4.79, or 15% since before the bid was disclosed. Yahoo! was up 48% to $28.42 over the same time.