News today broke of a 10-year partnership agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo!, after years of discussions between the two companies attempting to work together in some capacity. As part of the deal, Microsoft will provide backend technology for Yahoo! search functionality, giving Bing, Microsoft’s newly minted search engine, additional inquiries to work with. In addition, Yahoo!’s sales force will begin selling premium advertising for both companies.
There has been some speculation about what this will mean for employees of the two companies, including potential lay-offs at Yahoo! and some job opportunities for employees to move from Yahoo! to new roles at Microsoft.
Based on reviews on both companies, Yahoo! employees may actually be happier at Microsoft, with approval ratings at the company a full .4 points higher than at Yahoo!. More than half of employees (54%) do, however, approve of the work that Carol Bartz is doing at Yahoo!, in comparison to the job that Steve Ballmer is doing at Microsoft (42%).
The partnership is critical to both companies as they attempt to take on Google, the dominant leader in the search space. Google receives a company rating of 4.0 and CEO Eric Schmidt garners an approval rating of 87%. As you can see both Yahoo! and Microsoft have a ways to go when it comes to beating Google – both in the search space and with employee satisfaction.
| Glassdoor Report | |||
| Company Rating | CEO Name | CEO Approval Rating | |
| Microsoft | 3.7 | Steve Ballmer | 42% |
| Yahoo! | 3.3 | Carol Bartz | 54% |
| 4 | Eric Schmidt | 87% | |
Do you work at any of these technology giants? What do you think of the announcement, and if you are Yahoo! employee how would you feel about moving over to Microsoft? What impact do you think the news will have on the industry in the long term?
