That says something, that does...
Although I'm not entirely sure what, this recent summation of employee contributions to various candidates in the US Primary elections (as covered by wired.com) might shed some light on the cultural differences between Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! - and suggests further reasons why Microsoft's aggressive takeover offer for Yahoo! is likely doomed to failure.
So this is the breakdown of contributions by candidate and company (excuse the enormous whitespace that may follow, no idea how to get rid of it! Fixed...):
| Clinton(D) | Obama(D) | Paul(R) | Romney(R) | McCain(R) | Huckabee(R) | |
| Microsoft | $129,734 | $68,005 | $54,111 | $19,805 | $8,210 | $750 |
| $46,610 | $97,711 | $41,342 | $0 | $1,550 | $400 | |
| Yahoo! | $15,600 | $24,288 | $9,435 | $600 | $0 | $0 |
Note some variation will come from the relative size and international distribution of the employees; while Microsoft has 79,000 staff, Google has 16,800 and Yahoo! 13,600 (with ~1000 projected layoffs in the offing). All three have the bulk of their employees in the USA, with Microsoft the largest proportion overseas.
Overall the contribution figures suggest while all three companies favour Democrats Google and Yahoo! staff are far more aligned with youth and each other than with Microsoft. Microsoft employees favour Clinton, the mainstream Democratic candidate, while Google and Yahoo! favour the alternative and broad-base populist choice of Obama. The backing on the other hand of Republican candidates by all three companies appears to be well off the beaten track!
Interestingly, rumour has it that Yahoo!'s ex-CEO and very recently ex-chairman, Terry Semel was in favour of a deal with Microsoft. Terry Semel made the maximum allowed contribution to Clinton's campaign...
Posted at 02:58PM Feb 06, 2008 by Chris Puttick in Politics |