I’d suggest that these trifling details mentioned are the difference between a profitable or unprofitable merger /acquisition.

While Microsoft would undoubtedly like to increase their revenue in ad markets they’d still need to make a “build it or buy it” decision.

If it would take a decade, be as painful as the HotMail switchover and they’d lose the top brains at the company they’re acquiring (aka Jeremy, Rasmus, etc.) I would certainly think it would factor into the equation.

if microsoft indeed was obsessed with the technology stack of any acquisition, they would just port it (as they did hotmail).

in the case of yahoo, this would be a decade-long operation, if they cared at all.

microsoft isn’t talking to yahoo so it can acquire jeremy zawodny and rasmus lerdorf. they want ad revenue and ad relationships.