I don't think this really has many implications for CIOs to worry about, but since I've been half-heartedly following it in this blog up till now, I thought I should probably put the capstone on the Yahoo-Google deal by letting you know that Google is pulling out.

What it does represent, IMHO, is deft political manuevering by Microsoft and an exposure of the political naivete of Google in its first significant brush with anti-trust regulators. As I have said, I think this may come back to bite Microsoft in the long term, since this isn't a significant loss for Google and now they know what they will need to know next time they want to get a deal through Washington... but it does, theoretically, put Yahoo back in play as an acquisition target for Microsoft. On the one hand, you would hope that Steve Ballmer would have been slapped to his senses in the last few months watching the disintegration of Yahoo's staff and value; on the other hand, the price is probably going to be so low that why wouldn't he pick it up anyway? It might look nice on the mantel around Christmas time.