I saw this item from Yahoo float by this morning:

Yahoo! recently launched what we believe is the worlds largest Apache Hadoop production application. The Yahoo! Search Webmap is a Hadoop application that runs on a more than 10,000 core Linux cluster and produces data that is now used in every Yahoo! Web search query.

Now, combine that information with MS' desire to buy Yahoo. Post merger, when they start looking at how to rationalize all the overlap, where does something like that fall? Does anyone believe that Microsoft would leave a huge Linux cluster running a piece of the business that was that obvious? From a marketing perspective, could they afford to?

Prospect: "Do you use Windows and IIS to power your search site?"

MS: "Umm, no.... we use Linux and Apache (gulps)"

Prospect: "Remind me again why I should pay for Windows and IIS?"

These are the kinds of problems that will take any potential benefit from the purchase and just swallow them in ovrhead.

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