As a technology critic, I’ve came to think that Yahoo is not so innovative. Once again, Yahoo has outsourced another part of its whole ecosystem to a third party, and this time it’s for-sale real estate listings. Yahoo allows Zillow to run the for-sale real estate listings on its behalf. In the past, Yahoo had outsourced its Yahoo Personals to Match.com, and whatever else I had forgot completely!
Put on an investor hat, I think I definitely have to stay away from Yahoo. Why? Assuming Yahoo has outsourced way too many important parts of its ecosystem, give a few outrageous demands from its partners, Yahoo’s ecosystem suddenly looks very flimsy and lacks thereof many things that make a company unique and great! If partners break up, there go Yahoo’s great services, disappearing into the thin air!
I think Yahoo should’ve mustered up its R&D department, got them tools out, pooled them smart brains together, just maybe, Yahoo might be able to come up with something unique that nobody else could say “I invent it!” Innovation encourages growth and much more for a company, I think! Also, innovation allows a company to be independent from outsiders. To put it in another way, being independent means not to give in to outrageous demands, or having bad romances between the the partners where more headaches and costs may erupt from blind spots.
Source: Yahoo’s outsourcing: why the weak will get weaker
Vinh Nguyen
