I am in final prep mode for SugarCon, and I really think this conference is gonna rock. Literally - stay tuned for Colin’s play-by-play (I am sure he’s still in football mode following his Giant’s victory over Belicheat and Tom Shady).

But even with all the buzz around SugarCon over here at Sugar HQ, justice returning to the world with the Patriots defeat, etc. - I am still thinking about the potential Microsoft takeover of Yahoo! (I hate that punctuation rules make it seem like this deal excites me in any way.)

I get that Microsoft wants in on the online ad revenue market - it’s huge. But ultimately, Microsoft is paying big bucks to be a distant second behind Google. Well, maybe not “distant” but far enough behind that I can’t see it being worth $44+ billion.

IDC estimates that the combined entity will still be behind Google in terms of market share by 10%:

…I just don’t get the notion behind major M&A deals for second place. Oracle did the same thing - hobbling together an applications portfolio of dated products to play #2 to SAP. Just doesn’t make sense to me.

Granted, SugarCRM is nowhere near the largest CRM company in any category. But I like that we have a super clean code base, clear product portfolio and roadmap, and understand that steady, organic growth is still very possible in this market. It is way more exciting to be part of a constant build, rather than deal with bolting together products, messaging, cultures, etc. But that’s just my opinion…